


DEADLINE (a dead man for real)

by sequeltolife



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: (depending where u live. 18 is legal in Canada), :), Alternate Universe, BAMF Danny, Bisexual Danny Fenton, F/F, F/M, Familiars, Ghost Cores (Danny Phantom), Hallucinogens, I mean he's still our nerdy boy, Ice Powers, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Meddling Clockwork (Danny Phantom), Multi, Not Beta Read, Polyamory, Run-On Sentences, Slow Burn, Underage Kissing, Underage Smoking, Worldbuilding, uh shit im shit at tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:35:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 53,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24973204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequeltolife/pseuds/sequeltolife
Summary: Jack and Maddie Fenton pursue other ghost hunting methods after the failure of their second portal when Danny is 7 years old. Combined with the loss of portal and Danny being bullied in school, they decide to pull Jazz and Danny out of school, put the house up for rent, and go on a country-wide road trip and homeschool them. 10 years later, they’re back! Eventual Tucker/Danny/Sam polyamorous (ya heard me), eventual Valerie/Danielletldr Danny, Sam, and Tucker are 17, starting senior year, have never met, no accident (....yet), and some ghosts have animal familiars. Throw two gross old dudes plotting into the mix and it's bound to go wrong.There will NOT be any explicit sexual content between any underage characters.
Relationships: Danny Fenton/Tucker Foley/Sam Manson, Temporary Danny Fenton/Valerie Gray, Valerie Gray/Danielle "Dani" Phantom
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31





	1. Prologue (VLAD)

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here it is! Lol my 40,000 words and counting AU brainchild I've working on for almost four years (wow you'd think id have more words than that but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ). I've never posted something this close to my heart, but I've been in the phandom for a long time (I'm a lurker, shut up) and I thought 2020 sucks fuck it let's do it. ANYWAYS  
> Here is basically the know-what for this world I've built:  
> -Really liked the idea of ghost cores having an elemental vibe and I just really wanted ghost animal familiars so WHUMP here we are and imma drag u down with me. I hope I give off the vibe of being a bit more spooky both in Amity and the ghosts  
> -Danny, Sam and Tucker never met in kindergarten, and therefore no portal (yet heh) but S+T are still friends  
> -Due to bullying, Danny (and Jazz) are pulled out of school at ages 7-8 and they are homeschooled until ages 17-18, Danny beginning senior year. Fentons travelled across country in RV, and have encountered ghosts before, but portal isn't functioning.  
> -I want to give Sam and Tucker more of a fighting role, and I wanted them to also have more experiences with ghosts that will leave them with lasting effects (wait and seeeee)
> 
> I'm also not a fan of stories with a billion tags (also I suck at them so that won't be hard) so I'll probably tag the important ones as I go and do warnings before every chapters, and to top it off I shall share a song for each chapter, if that isn't annoying lmfao. I hope I get all the characters IN character, I tried to keep it true despite the wack scenario I've thrown them in. 
> 
> tldr Danny, Sam, and Tucker are 17, starting senior year, have never met, no accident (....yet), and some ghosts have animal familiars
> 
> Here we go!
> 
> Red Eyes, Thomas Azier:
> 
> _"She could never be closer_  
>  _And who's the one who casts the spell?_  
>  _Oh, I can't tell._  
>  _Pieces falling in the games you play_  
>  _And even castles could not get away,_  
>  _Red eyes."_

There was an impeccable, expensively dressed man despairing at the bottom of a garbage filled lake, and he loathed to let even the soles of his leather, antiqued Oxford shoes touch the sandy filth. For one in seven and a half billion people in the world, it didn't happen because he wished it. Other than his shoes floating off the ground a few inches, he was otherwise discernibly human, if one only had a single sight to look with. Long silver hair tied with a red silk ribbon, perfectly manicured facial hair along his chin, and by some could be considered average if he wasn't wearing Alexander Amosu. There was only a certain type of man that would wear a suit that took 80 hours and 5,000 stitches to make, not to mention the 18-karat gold and diamond buttons. He was so rich he didn't even have to think twice about it. There was a scowl etched into his aged, chiselled face as he constantly straightened his lapels and readjusted his tie. There was something handsome about him, but it got lost in the permanent snarl of his face. Not for good reason, even his smile was sharp and fake. If one were paying attention to when this kind of man was in public (for he so rarely was, he treated and thought of others like trash), they would instantly pick up on his distaste for anyone, even when trying to be subtle. As a rich man, he was only 'liked' for such.

The rich man hated being here, as he hated everywhere else which was not his mansion, and he couldn't help but sniff in distaste as he looked up. His normally perfect hair drifted around in surreal slow-motion. The moon above him should be unseeable through all the murk and 210 feet of deep, blue water separating him from the surface. It was barely a distant light in a dense, pitch-dark forest. The man could see everything just fine. A normal human couldn't survive past 150 feet, let alone 200 where almost a hundred pounds of pressure desperately tried to crush in on the body, but the man seemed almost comfortable at the deepest part of the lake as if he were sitting at home. He could see the point of an island dropping down to the floor kilometers away, he was mimicking breathing as if he weren't underwater, and when he opened his mouth instead of bubbles coming out, there were audible words clear as day.

"You have a lot of nerve to summon me here and then show up late," the man drawled in a smooth, clearly annoyed voice. It was immediate as he spoke, what kind of man this was, as if the shoes and everything else didn't tip it off. A hollow fang, unassuming enough, but with venom stored to back it up.

"My apologies," came another man's voice, laced with an inscrutable accent and echoing in the depths. It was as deadpan to match and had a hallowing echo. The voice came from no specific location, and the speaker remained invisible. Even here at the bottom where the water was already indescribably cold, a chill began to take over. The first man didn't seem bothered nor concerned.

"What is it that you want from me? I do have better things to do than hang out at the bottom of this disgusting lake." he said looking around at the garbage that littered the ground pointedly, everything from fishing rods to old tires. It was definitely not a desired meeting place, but there was one thing that this place offered that nothing on the surface could; complete and utter privacy. And he wasn't foolish enough to believe that _this_ particular being did not already see through his pseudonym to the man beneath.

The voice stayed silent for a few heartbeats before, "I need something to test my experiments on. Ghosts will not work."

This made the other man bark out a cruel laugh, but not because of the mention of ghosts. "And I suppose you wish to test them on me?" The man's blue eyes glowed a vicious red, illuminating the surrounding water with a hellish glow.

"Quite the contrary, actually." The voice seemed unperturbed at this threatening display, but considering that the speaker was invisible it would be wise not to assume that scare tactics would work. "I need your help in finding a specimen, or more accurately, _creating_ one."

Another bout of silence, this one longer than the last. When the rich man replied, his voice held an anxious clip.

"Are you speaking of me doing what happened to me to someone else or-"

"It does not matter how. I need something similar to your unique biology. Understand?"

"Why?"

This question earned a soft laugh back before, "Because I can. Surely, a man like you can understand that?"

And the man could understand, completely. After all, everything he ever obtained since college was a matter of _because he could._ He could lie, he could cheat, he could make people act as his puppets all because he wished it. Who was to stop him? And now, a rival. Someone with enough ambition to get what they desired, unconcerned of all consequences or what was right or wrong. Despite himself, he felt a grin stretch over his face. If he were a less arrogant man, he might be worried more about what this man was doing these experiments for. But, as in his nature, he didn't not concern himself with that for nothing could harm him. Instead, he was thinking about the potential possibilities and discoveries that attempting this could bring. What could he learn about himself that he didn't already know? He highly doubted there was more to learn, but it was as if this proposal was a mosquito that had bitten him.

Now the itch had begun.

"I understand."

"Excellent," before a small click resounded and a giant green swirling mass appeared in thin water. "I shall be seeing you, Masters." before the mass gave a gassy hiss and disappeared as quickly as it had come, the visitor taking his chill with him.

The man gave a loud guffaw, all polite mannerisms dropped as his guest left. The scowl intensified ten fold. The man- Masters- could hardly believe the audacity of his unfortunate business partner; first he shows up late before departing in such an arrogant manner. Showing off that he could create a portal to the Ghost Zone with only the click of a button- it made him want to put him in a pillory and electrocute him.

What really pissed him off, through it all, was the fact that this whole thing had excited him. For the first time since his Accident, he had a project to work on. Another feral grin passed over his face.

"This will be fun, _Maricara_."

 _Finally Vladimir, something to play with…_ an eerie voice, distorted like a whisper carried off by the wind. It differed from the other invisible voice with a distinct, playful female lilt. Vladimir huffed a deep laugh.

He shot to the surface, fuck the bends, his ear-to-ear grin splitting his face like a jagged strike of lightning. As he rose from the lake arms held at a cross, a sick parody of something Holy, water dripping through him like something quite the opposite, one could not but wonder if something terrible had been set in motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THERE IT IS ah I'm sweating hope you liked it lol
> 
> Any comments/kudos is appreciated, it really makes my day. thanks for reading MWAH <3


	2. ONE - AMITY (MADDIE/DANNY)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: uhhh smoking, brief anxiety,  
> 
> 
> Song : I Was Never A Normal Boy by Nightmare of you
> 
> _"I don't go out unless it's demanded of me_   
>  _I already know what is outside_   
>  _But what I don't know is what's inside of me"_

Amity Park is not a well known city, neither in America or in Canada despite it bordering both. Being close to one of the great lakes often entailed tourism, which meant business. In the summer, yes, it was a little busier than normal. People came to fish in Lake Erie, and more often than not, people stopped here on the way to the bigger lakes north. Naturally, that made hotels and motels one of the busiest places in town, second to only the bait shops and the mall. While the money still flowed, so did a whisper throughout the customers that none of the owners liked to acknowledge, and denied at all costs.

Ironically enough, they were _eerie._

A third of the customers, whether they confided in loved ones or slept alone, awoke from disturbing dreams. All of the settings were different, but all entertained the feeling of being watched. With constant looks over the shoulder and an impending doom suspicion following them into waking, it was scary enough that they never stayed in the same hotel. Eventually they realised that all places were the same and never came back.

Another third of the customers, the ones that didn't experience the haunting dreams, experienced something haunting enough. It varied, so even if people shared witnessing something eerie in the night, they were so different that it could be coincidental. Seeing something flash behind you in a mirror or something just outside your peripheral vision was very different from seeing ants crawling in patterns on the floor in the thousands one second, nothing in the next.

The final third of people, the lucky ones, saw and dreamt nothing.

But it was different for the citizens of Amity Park, the ones that had manned these hotels like fortresses. Visitors might think that the owners have a high turnover rate, but funnily enough it didn't. It was the family business: the locals would own them as long as people came, as their fathers and mothers had done before them. It was almost a battle between pride or tradition versus self preservation. The dreams and the visions, they got easier as they got older so it never mattered to leave, and so life went on.

However in the last couple years, the cities surrounding Amity Park were beginning to run out of land for developing housing so there was a boom in the market for realtors. This held two disadvantages; the ALR land was being eaten up by skyscrapers/retail and more people were starting to notice the oddities and say something about them.

The boom in the market never helped the rental on the house in Amity Park owned by the Fentons. Maddie Fenton was well aware of that, as she kept tabs on what was happening in the city almost obsessively. There had been a spike in complaints last summer (about their house and the visions), more in one year alone than in the last ten years combined. Maddie couldn't believe the sightings, let alone how to break to her husband that his home town seemed to once again be overrun with the supernatural. It wasn't that he wouldn't like it. Quite the opposite; he would _love_ it.

Maddie and Jack Fenton had been married for over twenty years now, she could say with pride. Jack never remembered their anniversary, but that didn't mean that their relationship had ever become dull. Their work together, plus their two children, kept their family knit tight and close.

Their eldest daughter, Jasmine, constantly asked to be put into public school all throughout her teenage life. In the end, she did miss out on the opportunities that the school system provided, but she had so many extracurricular activities on her transcript that all universities did a double take. She had many different aptitude tests done at colleges across America _and_ Canada, all passed with flying colors. Being as bright as she was, nobody could blame her. If any wondered about the Fenton kids being homeschooled, they kept it to themselves, though Jasmine could guess. She hated being lumped in with her parent's kind of smart. Jazz believed in what she saw, which is why she never denied her parents research, but would also hate to have her name near theirs in credibility. In psychiatry, your achievements showed for themselves. That brand of science may entertain hypothesis, but never with something so silly as ghosts and portals to other realms. Jazz may feel guilty about it, but it seemed that it was a truth of the world, something so set into their society's stone that it could never be overwritten: if you believed in ghosts, or the supernatural, you instantly lost credibility. She would do anything to make sure that didn't happen to her, even if it meant denying everything Maddie and Jack had proven.

The Fenton's youngest son Daniel, who was only 17, never said a word about school. He complained about travelling in the R.V., his father's snoring, his sister's griping, to anyone that would listen. It was normal, teenage boy stuff, but he never complained about not going to school.

In fact, Danny didn't mind being homeschooled. Public school scared him, though he never admitted this to anybody. More accurately, other teenagers scared him. Plus the things that his parents taught him were more than interesting; biology was cool; he loved learning about how the human body worked, and add a layer of chemistry, and there was a new whole cocktail of things to learn. Danny never understood why his sister hated it so much; after all, didn't chemistry have something to do with how the brain worked, and therefore, psychiatry?

There was another thing that differed Danny from Jazz, their drives for achievement. Though he was never ambitious, Danny knew well enough that he could go anywhere with the kind of knowledge his parents supplied. Whether he wanted to be a doctor or a nurse, or mabe follow more in his parent's footsteps, he wasn't sure, but it didn't make him stupid.

Maddie Fenton was left sitting on the hood of the R.V., debating what to do with the fate of their children. Only, Jazz wasn't really a child anymore and Danny was only a year younger than her. She knew well enough that Jazz had gotten multiple acceptance letters from different universities and didn't want to tell her for whatever reason, but still it filled Maddie with pride. With that pride came along doubt, not about Jazz or Danny, but whether or not they had made the right choice pulling them out of school altogether. It was far past the time for regretting or questioning those decisions, but still it filled her with fear. Jazz seemed to be going somewhere, wherever her little heart desired, but Maddie worried about Danny. It was like he was stuck in a loop for the last couple of years, nothing he did seemed to give him any passion. He liked learning, and reading, and playing music and video games. He liked to draw, he liked to sew, but he didn't have a _passion._ She couldn't help but wonder if she never gave him the opportunity he needed to learn who he wanted to be. When she started to think about that, it gave her even more anxiety. What kind of person had she raised him to be? He was gentle and kind, but the distance that had grown between them (and his sister, she had recently noticed), made her unsure of who he would grow to be.

She turned these thoughts over and over in her mind like a puzzle. Which way to turn, where to start. She equated it to being a half finished Rubik's cube; noticing a mistake at this part didn't seem to matter, you are too far forward to turn back, but close enough to the start to want to restart. She needed to make a decision or it would just sit on the shelf, half finished forever. By the time the sun was starting to come up, Maddie finally came to a decision knowing Jack would follow whichever way she went. It was time to stop following their path and settle in a way that both their kids could benefit.

Still, her gut was sour with the thought of too little, too late.

* * *

Over the past ten years, since Danny's parents had begun their travels/studies country-wide in the RV, Danny had often wished that their latest stop would be the last. It's almost surreal to him, as he stares up at the huge building that was supposed to be called home now. It was odd to be thinking that there's an empty room waiting in the house just for him. He was so used to having a designated sleeping spot in the RV, the tent and the rare motel rooms. But that was over. Permanent residence was a thing now. And that thing was a two story building with an insanely huge observatory affixed to the roof, with too many probes and homemade satellite and other reading devices. For ghosts, Danny assumed. Gaudy was a good word for it.

"Hey, Jazz," Danny called, shrugging his shoulders to adjust his leather jacket nervously.

"Yes, Danny?" his older sister called from inside the RV. Looking for something.

"Is this going to be good for us?" he asked, uncertainty.

"Are you kidding?" Jazz said, jumping out of the RV with a small box in her hands. Danny could see the paw of a stuffed animal sticking out one of the flaps. _Albear Einstein?_ , he thought.

"Danny, listen to me," Danny looked at his big sister, who apparently had been talking, "This is the _Best_ Thing that has ever happened to us. Finally we can be like normal people, and some of your adolescent years can be salvaged and you can live your life as a regular teenage boy and hopefully grow up to be a fine-"

And this is where Danny zones her out. He loves his sister and appreciates her opinions very much, but only appreciates them when they're wanted. Jazz has a habit of yammering on for a very long time, much like their dad, and if there's one thing Danny has learned: if you want to remain sane while being in an enclosed space with Jack andor Jasmine Fenton for painfully long periods of time, learn how to ignore them and make them think you're still listening. It's much easier to sneak away if they think you're still there. When Danny focuses on her again, she's staring off into the distance, a pondering look on her face, still mumbling about being "a good-natured citizen" and "instrumental to society". Danny makes himself smaller and slowly starts inching away until he's sure she's _really_ not paying attention to what he's doing before skedaddling the heck outta there.

Danny shared next to nothing in common with his father, but if there was anything that they both shared a love of was fast food. So when Danny found the Nasty Burger™, he was thrilled to find that this town did indeed have something that could capture his attention and fill the hungry void in his stomach that seriously would not go away. His mom said that it was because he was still growing, but he was already at 6'2, and Danny wished it would stop. It was alright to be tall, but to be tall and skinny like he was, was practically a curse. He was a bully's ideal victim. Bean Pole. Twig.

He ordered the biggest meal, hoping that it would go to his biceps.

When the tray was thrustin front of his nose by a very oily teenager, Danny wasted no time finding a spot in the crowding 'restaurant'. It was a very popular teenager hangout, judging from the obnoxious laughter and the fact that everyone had their cell phone out. Danny, all throughout his youth, had listened to his mother going on and on about how detrimental to their health smartphones could be while also watching kids his age have them glued to their hands, but Danny didn't really care either way. It wasn't like he really had anybody to text anyways, but when his mom gave him and Jazz the choice of either FentonFonesTM or the sleek black flip phone she'd used in college, he snatched it out his mom's hand before Jazz could blink. He had to endure Jazz's whining about _her_ being the oldest, and being a responsible _girl_ for an entire week before she realized he wasn't giving it up, no matter what she said or did (and tried to blame on him). Still, he always kept it in his pocket fully charged, and only pulled it out when he needed to check the time when a clock wasn't around.

He found a nice secluded two seater table in an odd angle of the store where no one else wanted to sit and threw his backpack underneath. He quickly worked at his food, glancing around and trying to discreetly people-watch.

There were obvious cliques; a group of pretty girls and boys, well dressed and hair manicured; nerds with retainers and zits who were being clearly avoided by everyone else, but having fun with each other nonetheless; presumably art kids, nose deep in their books and pencils scratching furiously in their books; goths, wearing dark colours and makeup, but still interacting with one another. Danny watched and like always, did nothing. He didn't know where he belonged in these groups, let alone know how to talk to people. Well, he could sort of talk to people, but teenagers? This was where he was lost. And in a week from now, he would be thrust into a building with about 2,000 other teenagers. The sudden anxiety of it made his stomach rumble and he snarled, pushing the tray away.

Danny threw away his garbage before quickly leaving the building, never noticing that another teenager wearing a red beret with matching glasses had been people-watching him as well.

The air was cool on his face as he stepped outside. For a moment he wished he was wearing a turtleneck or something because fall was coming upon them too soon. His mother couldn't stop talking about how it was supposed to be a cold, long winter this year. Suddenly, the noise from a big crowd of kids coming towards the building caught his attention and he quickly swerved down the alley to avoid them. He sighed a breath when they didn't notice him. That was when a familiar rhythmic clicking sound got his attention. Danny peeked around the dumpster to see a dark-skinned girl with beautiful, long curly hair crouching, as if to hide what she was doing. She was wearing one of the restaurant's uniforms. Danny cleared his throat politely, and stared back as her head whipped up to glare at him. The look dropped off her face, mouth dropping open and the cigarette falling to the ground. He dug around in his inside pocket of his jacket, pulling out a lighter, which he always kept in the same pocket as his phone.

"Uh, sorry. I came down here to avoid some footballers, I didn't mean to scare you," he said, offering it to her.

She gave him a small smile, picking up her smoke. She took the lighter, looked at her smoke as if debating to still use it after where it landed, then shrugged and lit the cigarette and took a deep inhale. Danny couldn't help lick his lips. He only brought out his pack in times of stress. And god dammit all, this whole next week felt like it was overflowing with a sense of dread.

"Can I bum one off of you" he blurted out before he could stop himself.

She blinked at him, surprised before pulling one out of the pack for him. Danny crouched down next to her before taking it. They were slims, different to the cheap crap Danny had bought. He lit it up and enjoyed the instant rush, suffering through a shudder at the awful taste.

"I thought you might be one too, a footballer I mean," the girl said. It sounded almost like a confession. Danny cocked his head at that, taking in another big drag and exhaling before responding.

"Are you ashamed of working here?" he asked, in a quiet voice. He didn't know if it was a question he was allowed to ask. The girl glared at him again, but he didn't look away. He hoped she understood he was asking out of curiosity instead of malice, and the intense burn of her gaze made his stomach fill with lead. It hadn't been five minutes into the conversation and Danny had already fucked it up. He took another drag of his cigarette, wondering if he should just get up and leave.

His patience paid off as the girl took a long drag, ash dropping between her beaten up sneakers. She responded with a big sigh before saying, "yeah, I guess so. I used to be friends with people like that, but last year my daddy lost his job and I lost my friends with it. I guess that means they weren't really my friends, but…." She paused, "I don't know, I guess I still care what they think about me."

Danny thought about it for a moment, taking one last pull of his smoke before squishing in out on the cement. "Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

She just blinked at him, so he elaborated, rubbing the back of his neck. "I think that's Doctor Seuss, but it's good advice irregardless. I'm Danny, by the way," he finished lamely, sticking out his hand.

She took it, giving him the first real, big smile, "Valerie. It's nice to meet you. Are you just visiting for the summer or-"

A loud bang cut her off as the door from the restaurant to the alley slammed open. A disgruntled teenager wearing an apron covered in questionable substances was glaring at them. "I said you could go for a quick smoke break, not have a date with your boyfriend! Come on V, I'm getting swamped back here!" he snapped, and then he was gone, door slamming shut behind him. They looked at their linked hands before unlatching quickly, Danny praying the flush of heat in his face was invisible.

Valerie sighed before standing up, "Well, that was short-lived. Here," she said before pulling out a small, crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket and a pen out of her hair. She scribbled on it before handing it to him. "It was nice talking to you Danny, but I gotta go. See you around," she gave him one last smile, her brown eyes twinkling, and then she was gone.

Danny looked down at the paper that was actually a wrinkled up receipt with a phone number written on it. His heart quickened in his chest as he shoved it into his hidden pocket. Maybe Jazz was right; coming to live here was the best thing for them.

Danny grinned ear to ear all the way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if there's anything else u think I should warn about, please let me know :)


	3. TWO - FIRST DAY (DANNY)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol I've always had this idea that Danny is like in love with the moon and sees it as his goddess fight me
> 
> WARNINGS : hoo boy strangulation (attempted), hand mutilation (imaginary), anxiety, nightmares,  
> Song : Nocturnal by Disclosure/Weeknd  
>  _"My shadow doesn't show in the dark_  
>  _The night time is inclined to my heart_  
>  _The emptiness I felt from the start_  
>  _Will follow me till I fall apart"_

Danny blinked as he stood out under the streetlight, suddenly aware of how bright the lights were. He cast his eyes down the street instead, blinking stars out of his vision. The street was unfamiliar, but the skyline and cityscape was Amity Park, and the sky was dark with the moon shining brightly up in the sky. The stars were clear to see, almost like he was gazing up in the desert, instead a light-polluted city. It was the moon that caught and kept his eye. He couldn't help but feel some sort of balance as he gazed at her, pleased that he could see her through the apartment buildings and treetops.

Danny stared in wonder, transfixed at how unusually big and beautiful she looked.

_My one and only true love,_ he joked to himself, a bittersweet taste putrid in his mouth.

Supermoons were rare, and he hadn't expected it. He usually kept track of these things on a calendar. Not as rare as Haley's Comet, but Danny always appreciated the moon the most throughout the solar system. The tides, the craters, the glow she had. He loved stars, but seeing something that close and _reachable_ made his heart yearn.

Danny smiled to himself, turned to continue walking down the deserted street and found he couldn't move. He had control of his facial expressions and eyes, but his body wouldn't move from the neck down. A jolt of fear went through him and he had a sudden burst of adrenaline. How didn't he notice how paralyzed his body was? His heart was beating wildly, the thudding hard and fast against his ribcage a testament to his terror.

" _Move!"_ He yelled at himself, pushing his body and mind against whatever invisible force kept him trapt.

The pressure suddenly gave way, leaving Danny to stumble and fall to the ground. He hissed as his knees scraped on the pavement, grit digging in his skin and tearing the flesh.

"This is the last time Jazz _ever_ buys me pants! Not even as a gift!" Danny spat as he pulled himself into a crouch, feeling confused and annoyed.

"Clearly, you've never picked on someone your own size before."

Danny launched himself into a defensive stance and whipped his head up at the distorted voice that came, oddly enough, from above him. There was a ghost, looking comedically like he was sitting on the moon and a crooked grin set in its face.

The ghost looked similar to other ghosts Danny has seen, like there's a giant flashlight pressed against their skin, but instead of looking red like a human would, he was a brilliant flash of white with traces of a green, radioactive glow. Danny could even see tracks of veins in his neck, and faint green freckles across a crooked nose bridge.

However, the appearance of the ghost didn't terrify Danny down to his toes, the face did.

His face, shining right back down at him with two toxic glowing orbs boring into him. Wearing his studded leather jacket down to his shoes, both inverted into a startling white, matching it's floating silver locks. No matter how distorted the air around him made him look, Danny would recognize himself anywhere. He had stared enough into a car window, he would see it through anything.

"What?" Danny could only say, eyes fixated on his clone.

"He means me!"

Another clone suddenly appeared beside him, causing Danny to yelp and jump back, tripping on the curb and falling onto the ground again.

He stared up at the two ghost Dannys and their odd savage grins. He could never have imagined such a sick expression set into his face; the fierce, directed malice, a crooked smile with sharp points of canines sticking into lips. The odd thing was, Danny could almost feel the ghost of teeth in his own flesh, and a terrified shudder wracked down his spine.

_This must be a dream,_ he thought to himself, shaking his head as if it would help clear it.

"Actually, I guess I mean you? Or us?" the second ghost Him continued, grin now a pondering look. "Oh well, there'll only be one of us left anyways." Those words chilled Danny down to the bone, an aching pressure spreading beside his heart as the second Danny _poofed_ into a cloud of mist, hail dropping to the ground where it had been.

Danny gaped only for a second before instinct and sense seemed to knock into him all at once. This may feel like a dream in an otherworldly sense, but the feeling of it was so very real; the sudden crisp air burning his nostrils like a freezing winter night, and the overall temperature went from a very pleasant Summer evening to a bone chilling cold. Danny could see his breath in front of his face, but wasn't unnerved by the change. A ghost was a ghost after all. He scrambled to pull himself up, but before he could get his feet under him, a white boot slammed into his chest, forcing him into the cement.

"What's wrong, Fenton? Why are you being such a _loser_?" the ghost Him sneered, lips drawing back to reveal his sharp dog-like teeth. Danny, confused and breathless, grabbed hold of his clone's ankle while the other Danny ground him into the sidewalk like a discarded cigarette. He narrowed his eyes and anger bubbled up inside him. A _loser?_ Maybe he was a little nerdy and weird, but a loser? He had fought more ghosts than his parents and _won._ That thought gave him the confidence to do what he needed to do next, even as tears stung his eyes. He sucked in another wheezy breath before grabbing the back of his clone's knee with his other hand, pulled and twisted in an attempt to get it off his sternum, as he pretzeled his other leg with his own.

The ghost, obviously surprised by his sudden actions, dropped to his knees and Danny quickly shot out a fist aiming for his cheek. A sense of dread filled him as his fist went untouching right through his head, fingers tingling.

_Duh! Ghost, idiot!_ He thought to himself

Two deathly cold hands snaked their way around his throat and suddenly his airways were choked off as the ghost forced down on his windpipe. That grisly grin was back on it's face as it stared down at him with a sick curiosity, his face mere centimetres away from his. He recognized the breaks in his nose just as easily as looking in a mirror and hot vicious anger bubbled up in his chest. _This freak is not me!_

"What will happen when you die, I wonder?" his cold breath ghosted over his lips as Danny kicked out his legs trying to knock the ghost off. He seemed to be as heavy as a boulder as his whole body seemed to be crushing him. Danny's panicked brain didn't hold on to the interesting revelation that a ghost could have that much weight, possibly on command; all he could think about was how the ghost intended to kill him and would.

"Do we both just cease to exist, or do you become me?" His fingers tightened, nails digging into Danny's flesh like the thought enticed him.

His vision was beginning to go fuzzy around the edges and the terrorizing thought that this ghost clone of his wouldn't let go simply because he lost consciousness filled his head. His hands found their way to the ghost's pale face, but instead of pushing like Danny had intended to, his fear paralyzed him once again.

His hands were twisted around like someone had cut them off at the wrist and reversed them, his palms facing him. He had an abnormal amount of fingers, almost ten on each hand, sticking out at all angles. They were all blistering and turning sickly black at the last digits. Danny's stomach turned and twisted.

_This is a dream... this is a trick... this… is... a…_

Danny bolted upright, grasping his throat and wheezing for air. He could still feel the weight on his chest from his… other self, and his neck throbbed. He looked wildly around the room, for a moment still believing he was lying on the sidewalk instead of in his own, new and unfamiliar bed.

_There's going to be a bruise in the morning,_ he thought to himself, gasping. He shook his head to clear it of the insanity; it was just a dream, _only_ a dream, and imaginary things did not leave marks.

Despite knowing this, the fear remained. Danny untwisted his legs from the sheets and swung them over the side of the bed. He took a furtive glance at the journal on his bedside table; Jazz had given him this "Dreambook" she called it, where he often blearily scrawled them down in the middle of the night, but tonight did not want to look at such a thing. While Danny had often had dreams with the moon in them, or city streets that he'd never roamed, and especially ghosts, he'd never had a dream where he himself was the ghost.

_Or being strangled to death,_ he thought bitterly, grasping his throat again.

Danny stood up and walked briskly to his door, opening it and tried making it down the stairs as quietly as he could. There were boxes strewn everywhere, some opened and others still unpacked. He felt unfamiliar in this house, unlike his parents and Jazz who had lived here for almost more time than they had lived in the R.V. This made Danny want to laugh, in a bitter sort of way. While he had never told his parents this, living in the R.V. had begun to grow on him. Living in such a big space had already made him feel like there was a growing gap between him and his family.

He loathed that he longed for the endless disturbances that once annoyed him.

His feet carried him all the way to a large door that was painted a very jarring yellow with black stripes. He turned the knob, pulled the door open and headed down basement stairs much slower. There was a single light on down here, which must be on by accident, but Danny was grateful. If it had been pitch black, he was certain he would have turned back and curled into bed, cursed to lay awake all night.

What compelled him to come down here, to even open the door, confused Danny himself. That is, not until he stood before the portal for the first time.

When they had lived here ten years ago, eight year old Danny Was Not Allowed in the basement where Mommy and Daddy spent most of their days (more like twenty-four hours, seven days a week) building ghost weapons and working on their masterpiece. Seventeen year old Danny now understood why. The enormous metal mouth that took up the far side wall of the basement looked like it could swallow a child up. Danny stared into the passage which looked endless in it's darkness.

A shiver ran up his spine, and not for fear. It wasn't the same as when he had been looking into his own eyes, glazed with a ghostly light, and saw intent to kill. Not like when he had seen that ghost's clone and it had taunted him, knowing what he had not. This shiver was one of _anticipation._

It forced him to remember the ghosts that he had already fought: the one Jazz nicknamed Ursula, a giant octopus woman who had attacked them at the mall when he was fourteen, the shriveled dried up ghost mummy that had almost sucked all the water out of his Dad, and the giant cat that seemed to be especially ferocious towards Danny despite his parents shooting ecto-bazookas at it. During all those battles, though he may have had the wits scared out of him, he also never felt more _alive._

Was that the reassurance he came down here to look for?

What if his parents succeeded in turning it on? He gave up on his dream of being an astronaut a long time ago, but would he finally give in to following his parents footsteps? What else would he do?

Did this dream mean that he could do it, no matter what it turned him into?

Danny shook his head. Thinking this way wasn't going to get him anywhere, just keep him up all night. IT was a dream and that's all it was; it wasn't a premonition, a vision of any sorts. It was a nightmare about ghosts because his parents hunted ghosts.

He tore his eyes from the portal and headed back towards the stairs, shutting the light off in the process. He lied in bed for many hours before drifting into a restless sleep.

Danny didn't exactly wake up in the morning. There was no coming to or blinking grog out of eyes; it was like his eyes were closed and he was in that inbetween state of sleeping. Like when there's a TV or radio playing. He just opened them and the clock read 6:56 as if all he did was blink.

He groaned from frustration and felt like suffocating himself in his pillow. The _need_ to sleep was heavy in his body as he stood up and dressed, but Danny knew it was no use trying to go back to bed.

As he headed downstairs he could hear somebody in the kitchen, opening drawers, closing drawers. Danny blinked at the blur of blue bustling around, his mother frantically putting cutlery and cooking tools away.

"What are you doing, mom?" Danny asked warily, almost instantly regretting it as that ferocious intensity focused on him.

"Oh good morning, Danny! How are you today, sweetie?" She said, her blue eyes laser focused even this early.

Danny learned early on to keep his face straight and not to lie; as a terrible liar, you learn not to do so, therefore never getting any better. However, Danny became a true artist of half-truths.

"Oh, you know! Early bird gets the worm, and all that. I'm going out for a run," he finished lamely, heading for the door in a nonchalant manner to avoid suspicion.

"Oh, Danny!"

_Crap,_ he thought, freezing, his hand almost around the knob of the door to freedom. "Yeah?" was what he said.

"I'll start cooking breakfast in about an hour or so come back and eat something before school, okay?" She said, handing him his phone. Danny took it with a small sheepish smile.

"Okay. See you in a bit." He opened the door and left, but not before glancing back at her. Maddie's heart swelled.

Danny stuffed his hands into his jeans pocket. The days had quickly gone from summer, hot day in day out to chilly in the mornings and questionable the rest of the time. Normally Danny would stay indoors until the chill had worn off, but he had to get away from this… house not yet a home.

Jazz would be going off to school the city over, but would stay at home and as a compromise for free rent would help Mom and Dad with ghost stuff. Danny was a little annoyed to start, thinking that maybe with only one child in the house their parents would pay more attention to him for once. He got over it within a couple of days, coming to the realization that he would hate all the scrutiny. Danny was sick of being alone, but it wasn't an adult's attention he wanted; it was someone his own age, someone he could confide into _other_ than Jazz. Sometimes one needed to vent, but you don't feel like anything got off your chest when the listener takes notes.

The air was crisp on his face and he progressed into a slow jog only because his fingers were getting cold. He didn't want to think about the dream anymore, but couldn't seem to shake it, like the ghost was actually haunting him. He didn't want to think about going to school, either. The last time Danny was in a public school was November of grade one. His parents had pulled him out after a bunch of kids tied him to a goal post after school, where he stayed for hours until Jazz found him. He didn't like to talk about it and Jazz promised to never tell Mom and Dad that he'd been stripped to his underwear and socks. Their parents had pulled Danny and Jazz out of school after that, but only after he had confessed that the bullying had gone on for months before that.

Next thing Danny knew they were travelling across the country building their inventions, while also homeschooling their two young children. Still to this day he felt like Jazz blamed him. If he'd just sucked it up, they'd still be in school and she'd have the education of her dreams.

His face soured just thinking about it. He really didn't want to think about his dad trying to teach him and his sister biology or his mom blabbering on about chemistry or physics. Jazz soaked that crap up with a sponge and then some, but Danny saved up for a guitar and focused on learning that instead. Sure he understood some of it, but what was he going to do with it? He wrote, he drew, he learned about the stars just to spend time gazing at them. Why shouldn't he, when the stars were just so beautiful out in the desert all alone?

Danny came to a park and slowed to a stop. His heavy breathing clouded the air in front of him. He pulled out his phone and flicked it, resounding in a satisfying snap; the clock read 7:28. It was still dawn out, and only a few dedicated joggers and dog walkers were out. He shrugged as he decided that he had enough time to check it out.

It had a cobblestone path that weaved through trees, bushes, and carefully planted gardens, but also had spots of expanse of grass. Danny followed the path, enjoying the birds chirping and the peaceful quiet that was no traffic. The path turned and the cover of trees disappeared and a field opened up in what Danny assumed was the centre of the park. It wasn't as large as a football field, but was large enough to host an impromptu soccer game, or picnics and the path was lined with park benches and tables.

What really caught Danny's eye though was the great Sycamore tree tucked into the corner of the field. It was so large, almost a hundred feet tall, and Danny was sure that when this park was built, it must have been _around_ this mother of a tree. Once he came across the field to inspect it, he laid a hand on the oddly patterned mottled bark. Its massive trunk would have needed more than five people standing around it, holding hands to encircle it. It had already begun to lose its leaves, which had turned orange and encircled the tree on the ground.

He didn't know why, but he had the unimaginable urge to just climb it. It would be hard, but he would be so high it would be worth it. He checked his phone once more for the time before pulling off his boots, socks, and gloves. The tree had delicate bark, and he didn't want to damage the tree. He tucked his clothes into a hole near the trunk before he began circling, looking for a branch with easy access. Halfway round, there was a low, thick branch that Danny could just barely reach without having to jump. It was the lowest one, and he couldn't help but think that perhaps it was fate that he was just the perfect height. He grabbed on with both hands, before walking up the trunk and gently hooking himself over.

Danny took his time, making sure he wasn't ripping all the bark off, choosing the next branches carefully. He stopped about halfway up, sweating and panting. He perched on the tree, took off his jacket and tied it around his waist. He could perfectly people-watch from up here; he watched three joggers go by, four people with dogs, and two moms with strollers. Danny stayed up there until he began to get cold again, and by that time his mind was blissfully blank of his nightmare. He pulled on his coat and climbed down.

He took his time pulling his boots back on, dreading going back to the house and then to his inevitable destination. School terrified him more than anything; Danny knew he was alone and in solitude that fact wasn't so bad, but being around thousands of his peers that had _connections_ …. He knew that eventually people would pick up that he was a loner, but if they knew about his parents too, it would never change. He would be backed into a corner and left there until Graduation. Somehow, that fact seemed to almost calm him. Most people didn't talk to their highschool friends after graduation (so he heard), so what would it matter anyway? He only had to do it for a year, and he was better off spending that time focusing on what he would do after.

_I can do this,_ he thought as he made his way home, a little more confident than before, _I just have to be me, and people will probably ignore me until it's blessedly over._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any Comments/Kudos are Major Loved <3


	4. TWO - FIRST DAY (SAM/TUCKER)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Song : Suburban Knights by Hard-fi_ " _we ain't got nothing, nothing to do, a big fat nothing, nothing for me nothing for you._  
>  _suburban dreams, just out of reach, work till you die, that's what they teach you in school."_  
>  WARNINGS; possible sexist language (not intentional, not explicit),

Sam Manson prided herself for a few things that differentiated her from her high school peers: She dressed uniquely to what she found interesting, not what was bestselling; she adamantly stood up for causes she believed in like Circuses not having elephants or lions; she never judged a book, or people, by their covers.

The same could not always be said for her best friend since grade school, Tucker Foley. Though he was not a part of the mindless horde of teenagers she tried to ignore everyday, he still fell prey to stereotypes. She sipped at her hot tea, grasping her reusable coffee mug in her gloved hands, desperately trying to protect her cold fingers from the September air as they both walked to school. Sam would like to ignore him and his comments, but as usual was unable to stay silent to the unjustified onslaught on some poor soul.

"I mean it seriously, I hope he doesn't go to Casper." Tucker was continuing.

"Where did you say you met this guy?" Sam asked casually, sipping at her tea again. Mmmm Peppermint Pep Talk… Perfectly ironic. Satan, she was gonna school him.

"He was eating at the Nasty Burger with enough food to rival Dash Baxter's caloric intake. And have you seen Dash since the beginning of break," Sam shrugged noncommittally, "The meathead has literally doubled in size."

"So what's the big deal, Tucker? You saw some guy eating at the fast food shop that you've never seen before. He's helping that Nasty place stay in business, why are you grilling him?"

Tucker sighed and shrugged, pulling out his PDA and tapping something in, almost unconsciously. He totally ignored her lame pun and she pursed her lips in annoyance. Usually that got a scoff. "I don't know, maybe it was his fashion choices."

Sam glared at him and stopped walking, forcing him to turn and look at her. She just raised an eyebrow and gestured down at herself; she was currently wearing a black dress that flowed down to her ankles with long, embroidered bell sleeves that covered her hands, and a low-cut laced-up V-neck that came and wrapped around her throat; a large-brimmed black sun hat, faux red leather gloves, and large combat boots. Just by assessing her clothing, let alone her hair and make-up, was enough for her to be seen as different. She looked like a witch going off to war and it was the first day back to school, so it wasn't far off. She wasn't exactly inconspicuous or near the category of 'normal'. It was one of those outfits she had to stuff into loose pants and cover up with a disgusting turtleneck so her mother wouldn't make her change.

Tucker rolled his eyes, but got her point. Most of the time he liked being in the shadow of Sam's weirdness, but he sometimes forgot too. The most noticeable things about him were his red converse, matching glasses and beret. It was all kinda lost in his great-grandpa's brown leather bomber jacket. "Sorry. But it wasn't just his clothes! He just looked… hard-ass."

They continued walking, school coming into sight now, and Sam tried digesting what he said. They were seniors now, so they were comfortable in the school now. At least Sam felt that way; was Tucker worried about the new student because it adjusted the balance of the school cliques or was it something else?

She cocked her head and blurted out before she could regret it, "Are you scared he'll beat you up or something?" Tucker glared at her behind his red framed glasses but didn't answer. Sam prodded him anyways.

"I'll protect you, if you want." It wouldn't be the first time that Sam had to bust out a few martial arts moves and get the jocks to back off, and maybe she shouldn't have pressed him because Tucker explodes.

"That's just it! At least let me take my beatings like a man! It's worse having a girl save you, y'know?" Sam glares and is about ready to spit something back, but Tucker rolls over her before she can get a word out. "I'm sorry Sam, it's not a personal thing, it's a male pride thing. It's cool that you can and will stand up to Dash and his lackeys for me, but it honestly just gives them more ammunition." He looks at her with a half-embarrassed, half-determined expression on his face. His lips are pursed together in a way Sam knows him to be willing her to understand. She doesn't argue, just nods and thinks.

She kind of understands, and if she were younger, she would have fought tooth and nail to try and make Tucker understand that it wasn't all that bad to have a girl save his ass, but she honestly can't be bothered to cause a fight over it. For the longest time, it had just been him and her, the outcasts, bonded together by a common sense of humor and sarcastic attitude, and she didn't need to start out the first day of school with a fight, unlike years before. It was pretty normal for them to argue monthly, avoid each other for a bit before gravitating back together.

"I can't promise that I wont verbally attack them," she said slowly, "but if you don't want me to fight them off, I guess I can hold back." _But i'm not letting them just beat the shit out of you_ is implied.

Tucker sighed in relief, glad that Sam wasn't in an aggressive mood that morning.

"Will you promise to come to my next self-defense class?" She asked quickly, blinking her eyelashes at him.

Tucker blinked fast back at her, not at all surprised at where this conversation was going. "I guess I could do a couple of classes."

Sam grinned at him, a devilish look on her face. "Aw yeah. Sweatpants required, if you show up in cargo pants or something _I'll_ beat you up."

Tucker laughed and grabbed her wrist and pulled her up the steps, "Shut up, let's get to homeroom and meet up at our lockers. Same as last year?"

"Duh!" She went down the opposite hallway he had to go, but not before swirling around, her black dress flaring out like a tulip, winked an eye and almost-yelled, "Later loser!"

Tucker actually laughed at this, giving her a quick little wave, "See you, geek!"

He turned and headed towards his homeroom to get his schedule and lock, scanning the hallways for familiar faces. Silence surprised Tucker, he thought there would be more students impatient to meet up with friends after the break. He pulled out his PDA, tapping at it to see the clock. They were way early, as per usual due to Sam's eagerness to get away from her parents. This plagued Tucker even on summer holidays; Sam showing up early and ruining his precious beauty sleep indefinitely.

An image of the guy at Nasty Burger was thrown into the forefront of his mind; the wild black hair, the studded leather jacket and matching gloves that he was sure Sam would be in a huff about, and he was suddenly overcome with the idea that he might regret asking Sam not to step in. Knowing how clumsy he could be, he would probably trip into him and be beat into oblivion by an emotionally damaged teenager. He shuddered.

Tucker thought of Sam again, and the fierce expression on her face when he had talked about this unknown. Maybe she was right and he should stop judging people by his first impressions. The guy could be an animal lover, or a hospital volunteer (he shuddered again, _hospitals_ ), or something. A contributing member of society. A very spiky one.

Tucker sighed, torn between jumping to conclusions and just minding his own business. Why should he care about some random he'd never met? The guy probably (read: hopefully) wouldn't even glance his way.

As he entered his homeroom, he scanned the room. It looked identical to last year except for a bizarre new desk arrangement- oh joy!- and everything had been cleaned spotless over the break. Ms. Testlaff was sitting on her rolling chair, clacking away on her laptop with an annoyed-borderline-murderous expression on her stout face.

"Hey Ms. Testlaff, did you have a good break?" Tucker approached hesaintively, in fear of her possibly throwing it in frustration. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Wasn't long enough," she grunted, pushing herself away from the desk and rolling towards the shelf behind her. She filtered through some papers before pulling out the one she wanted. Rolling back to her spot she held out the paper. Tucker smiled gratefully, taking the schedule from her.

"Suppose you want a lock too?" She asked, without looking up from the drawer she was now digging loudly through.

Tucker opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, someone else was clearing their throat and an unfamiliar deep, but gentle voice said "Would you be Miss Testlaff?"

Ms Testlaff's head whipped up, mouth open and ready to correct the student on their incorrect honorific, but she just froze. Tucker turned to look at the guy who single-handedly distracted their strict gym teacher with a pretty innocuous introduction and he froze like a deer in the headlights.

It was _The Guy,_ the one Tucker had been dragging for about an hour already this morning, and here he was staring at him with the most piercing blue eyes Tucker had ever seen. The shaggy black hair dropped into his eyes, but it looked neater than it had the week before, like he had attempted to tame it but gave up. He was wearing the exact same thing he had in the Nasty Burger; a simple white shirt, light gray jeans ripped at the knees and rolled at the cuff, and combat boots that were akin to Sam's, except his had straps over the laces and looked steel-toed. The most noticeable things about him was his crooked nose and his leather jacket which was studded along the collar, shoulders and down the backs of his arms. He was still wearing those fingerless leather gloves, and if Tucker wasn't worried about those piercing eyes somehow reading his thoughts, he would have laughed. They would have looked tacky and forced on anyone else, but they seemed to fit him, well, like a pair of gloves.

Ms. Testlaff stood up, the sound of the chair abruptly rolling away snapped Tucker out of his obvious staring (she never stood up unless it was gym, opting to roll everywhere in the classroom). The Guy's schooled expression was now melting into a mildly embarrassed one, like he was the one who caused the awkward silence in the room. He was the cause of it, but it wasn't like they had the right to just gape at him like he was the last new iPhone on the shelf and you just can't believe it's sitting right there and no ones doing anything-

"Ah," Ms. Testlaff cleared her throat, but still ended up sounding like a choked up frog, "You must be Mr. Fenton," and she walked over to the desk again, leafing through the papers more hastily this time. Tucker didn't miss that she never corrected him on calling her Miss. Also she never said _mister what the-_

"... Danny, please."

"OK, Danny, here's your schedule and your lock. Make sure to tell me your locker number later today in homeroom."

Danny came up and stood next to Tucker without so much really looking at him (bonus!), and took the papers from her. He towered a good foot over her and was a couple inches taller than Tucker, and he tried to swallow his nervousness. He seemed less intimidating standing in the doorway than he did right next to you. Tucker didn't miss the broadness of his shoulders up close, despite his lean frame, and while he didn't look like a football star like Dash, Tucker was right earlier when he thought they could rival. He just prayed that Dash and Danny didn't become friends because that would be every geek's nightmare.

"Thank you," he muttered, and he was gone, his long stride able to get him out of the room in three steps. Tucker would almost say he ran.

He let go of the breathe he hadn't noticed he'd been holding and looked at Ms. Testlaff who seemed equally embarrassed, her face the color of a Heinz bottle. He couldn't say he'd ever seen her this way before; she was normally very composed and only lost her temper when students were being particularly stupid, or at computers.

Tucker gave her a weak grin, "Smooth."

She glared at him, "Don't you sass me, Foley. At least I said something; you just stood there like a lump on a log."

His grin faded, leaving him with a sour taste in his mouth. She was right; he was a total coward. He didn't even introduce himself, let alone say _hi_! And suddenly, a desperate feeling to prove her wrong overcame him, and he schooled his nervousness into determination (he tried anyways, the worms in his gut still squirmed around). How was he going to be more courageous if he never did anything different than just standing on the sidelines?

"Oh yeah?" he said to her, before whirling around and stomping out of the room after the Fenton guy before he could change his mind. He looked down the halls before seeing him rounding the corner at the end of the hall, his tall frame impossible to miss, black backpack hanging from one shoulder.

Tucker practically ran after him, his red converse sliding on the polished linoleum floors. He reared around the corner and screeched to a halt, almost slamming into the guy as he was taking a sip from the water fountain.

Danny unfolded from his weird half-crouch, half-slouch position and towered over Tucker again (god that was going to take some getting used to) with a blank expression Tucker took for annoyance.

"Uh sorry, man," Tucker said, and the guy just cocked his head not saying anything, so Tucker just steamrolled before he could make a bigger fool of himself. "I'm Tucker, Tucker Foley, I'm in your homeroom," _obviously_ , he didn't add, "You're new right? Do you want help finding your way around?" He blurted that last part out before he could stop himself. Oh god, why did he have to turn himself into a joke? Tucker could have stopped after he introduced himself; he didn't even know the guy, didn't know if he even _wanted_ help, but before he could take it back the guy's face split into this huge crooked grin, the whites of his teeth flashing.

"That'd be awesome. I'm Danny Fenton." and he stuck out his hand nonchalantly, and Tucker took it, and his grip was firm but not tight. His blue eyes twinkled, and Tucker was overcome with his genuinity. He suddenly didn't feel all that nervous.

"Okay, Danny, can I see your schedule?" Tucker took it from his outstretched hand and quickly glanced over his classes. He was a little surprised, they all seemed pretty… basic. It was their Senior year, most students were picking advanced classes to make their applications for college look better. Math Foundations, Basic science, gym, English, and surprisingly, textiles. Tucker read as they walked towards where his locker was, Danny trailing beside him, expression open and curious. "Well, we have gym together so far. You have textiles with my friend, Sam."

"That's cool, I guess." He said quietly. "Are you from here, Tucker?"

"Born and raised," he shrugged, but Danny seemed to perk up at that for some reason. "I mean the place is all right, community college could be better, but we have some of the cleanest air, or something like that…" He pulled out his PDA again unconsciously checking the time. "That's your math classroom there, across from the haunted locker 724."

Tucker glanced back up at Danny, and he was grinning that grin again, staring at the locker with a strange intensity. Tucker shuddered and hoped that look was never aimed at somebody, cause they'd probably piss their pants. It reminded him of Jeremy, a kid in his science class last year who got that kind of look every time they had to dissect something.

"Anyways, I gotta go meet my friend. Do you… wanna come maybe?" Tucker asked.

And Tucker knew, before those words even left his mouth, was he going to get some unholy retribution from Sam over this. He was going to eat his words even if Sam had to write it down and literally feed them to him. But even if he didn't really know Danny, the guy had a quality air about him, once you actually talk to him. He seemed kind of dorky and out of place, despite trying to stay cool and collected. Even now, he looked hopeful, surprised and excited all at once, before quickly schooling his face into that blank look, but Tucker hadn't missed it and Danny's eyes were still shining.

"Really? I'd like that."

They turned the next corner and Tucker was gonna ask where Danny was from, but he stopped suddenly, grabbing onto the sleeve of his bomber jacket and effectively bringing him to a halt as well.

"Uh, Danny?" he asked, peering up at him. He had kind of a dazed look on his face, mouth open in a little 'o', but his eyes were fixed on something. Tucker turned and looked. Of course.

There was Sam with a scowl on her face trying to shove her huge hat into her locker, and Dash trailing after Paulina down the hallway, clearly trying to hit her up, but her and Star were just sharing knowing looks and smiles. Tucker could guess.

"Who is that?" he whispered, eyes never really moving.

"That's Paulina. She's crazy popular, so I wouldn't even attempt trying to board that train." Danny made this choking noise so Tucker slapped him on the back, "And she _kinda_ has this thing with Dash. And that's my friend Sam there," he said pointing rudely at her.

"Hey! Fo-leech!" Dash yelled as he passed, clearly catching on that he'd have better luck with Paulina if he was hitting his head against a wall than _talking_ at her, "Found another _geek_ to join your club?"

"Yeah, sure, Dash," Tucker said, refusing to make eye contact and pulling Danny towards Sam. At least Danny had closed his mouth now, and wasn't really fighting Tucker because he wouldn't have been able to pull him otherwise. Danny was enigmatically _heavy,_ those Nasty Burgers obviously going somewhere. This fact almost made Tucker forget all about Dash, until he was grabbed by the back of his jacket and _yanked_ backwards.

Unlucky for Dash, Tucker had instinctively grabbed onto the spiky collar of Danny's jacket, and Dash had to learn physics the hard way. Faster than lightning, Danny's tall frame dropped into a low crouch, centreing his body weight, barely moving an inch while Dash _pulled,_ his grip slipping and he crashed into the floor.

Clearly stunned, Dash blinked up at them. The hallway was deathly silent, the chattering of the students switched off like a radio. Tucker was so shocked at how the situation clearly and quickly just went from bad to worse, he just stood there mouth agape, until he felt Danny's arm sling around his shoulders.

He had a grin on his face again like he'd just found a new toy, and the icy glare he'd turned on Dash made Tucker shiver. "Clearly," he drawled, "you've never picked on someone your own size before." The threat in his face plus the barely concealed insult echoed along the lockers, the other students staring. No one ever talked back to the Highschool Football Star Dash Baxter, not unless they were looking for a world of hurt.

Dash looked shocked for half a second before it registered. The blood rushed to his face and he looked murderous, pulling himself off the floor in a rush, "Why you little-!"

"What in the _Call of the Wild_ is going on here?" came a familiarly loud frustrated voice. A tall, rather large shape wearing the same old turquoise shirt and black tie came into view. _Mr. Lancer looks balder,_ Tucker couldn't help but notice as he held back a snicker.

Danny stood up to his full height, and was still a good hilarious inches taller than Lancer, and that expression was gone so fast Tucker would have thought he'd imagined it if the dozen or so kids standing in the hallway weren't still silent.

Danny smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, "Uhm…"

"Good morning, Mr Lancer!" came an awfully cheerful voice, almost inhuman to Tucker's ears as he recognized Sam's _Polite Voice_ , "We were just meeting up in the hallway, and Dash accidentally ran into, uh..."

"Danny," he supplied helpfully.

"Danny, here. " Sam finished, gesturing at Danny. Who waved, a smitten look on his face.

Mr. Lancers eyes were squinted like he didn't quite believe Sam's blatant lies, and why should he after their previous experience with Sam's activism. Lancer could never forget her releasing hundreds of frogs into the school that were for the science experiment. However, the utter silence of the students unnerved Lancer and the need for this situation to be dissolved was too strong.

"Is that so? Well, if it was an accident, then no harm, no foul. Move along everyone." He took a military stance and stuck his ground. He stared at the students until they started walking away or rooting around in their lockers. The hushed whispers that followed and the stare Dash gave Tucker before walking away made him swallow. The lump stayed.

He felt Sam's gloved fingers wrapped around his wrist as she quickly began dragging him and Danny down the hall.

"Tucker," she hissed through her teeth, "did the _conversation_ we have this morning not solidify our agreement that you would Not antagonize Dash until you-!"

"Alright, alright i hear you! And Dash doesn't need any antagonizing, okay? If he needs a punching bag, he'll just lash out!" He said heatedly back.

"Wait, that's a common occurrence?" Danny cut in. Once they rounded the corner Sam let go of them and leaned against the lockers, arms crossed, but her expression was her normal neutral.

"Duh, this is a public high school. There's always some douchebag that wants to pick on the defenseless," she looked pointedly at Tucker, who felt his face flush with embarrassment. "Well, anyways, it's nice to meet you, Danny. I'm Sam." She stuck her gloved hand, and Danny took it with his, giving her a soft smile. Tucker noticed how Dannys hand seemed loose, the way he was tilting his head caused his hair to fall into his face. Like he was trying to hide his eyes.

_Huh…_ Tucker thought, remembering the firm handshake Danny had given him. And then the way Danny had stopped in the hallway, mouth agape staring at who Tucker had thought was Paulina. Tucker stored this new information in his memory bank for potential future friendly blackmail.

"I was gonna show Danny to his classes. His first class is Miss Angler, then Davies. Do you know where their rooms are?"

"Yeah, Anglers room is a couple rooms down from our math class. Davies is in that weird little hallway."

They showed Danny Davies science room first, which was indeed down a weird hallway. It had minimal lighting, no lockers, just science posters and an antique looking vending machine.

"Cool," was all Danny said, and Tucker grinned at the odd awed look on his face.

Sam even had a small smile on her face, one Tucker recognized when she laid eyes on any animal or when she was talking to one of Tucker's little cousins.

Suddenly, the first bell rang, causing Danny to jump a good foot in the air, eyes wild and looking around. Tucker and Sam both burst out laughing at the display, Danny rubbing the back of his neck again, smiling sheepishly.

"We'd better hurry up and get to math."

"We're not late are we? I'll never hear the end of it from my sister if I'm _tardy_ for my first class."

They turned the corner to the hallway that was composed of most of the math classes.

"Nah, that's just the warning bell," Tucker said, curious as to why Danny didn't know this. Maybe he came from some weird school in another state that did not use bells. "That's your first class there," he said pointing.

Danny looked at the room, his face blank. "Cool. Thanks Tucker and Sam. I'll see you around, I guess." His lips were pursed in a way like he wanted to say more but they stayed clamped even as he went to turn away.

Sam and Tucker shared a look, and he knew what she was thinking. He was certain they were having the same thought; Danny was nice, chill, and Tucker owed him one for saving him from Dash, even if he didn't do much. But in the fifteen minutes they knew each other, Tucker actually _liked_ Danny, and he hadn't liked someone since Sam and that was grade one. Well, there was Valerie, and Mikey was okay with short periods, but they weren't his _friends_.

The look in Sam's eye had all but confirmed his thoughts: man, this guy could be someone to confide in.

"Do you wanna have lunch with us?" Tucker blurted out to Danny's already turned back.

He stopped and when he turned around, Tucker was surprised by Danny's shy smile. "Sure. See ya!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it begins.....
> 
> Any Kudos/Comments are printed out and put on my vision board. Thanks for reading!


	5. THREE - FENTONWORKS (SAM)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Song : Ornaments by Caitlyn Scarlett_  
>  _"I wish I could hold a steady gaze and conversation_  
>  _I am many, I am one_  
>  _I wish I could recognise a phase when I'm in one_  
>  _Always loaded like a shotgun"_  
>  WARNINGS: mild swearing, slight mention of Tucker taking meds that aren't his  
> 

Sam slammed her school bag onto the small student desk loudly, causing other students to stare. She couldn't stop thinking about this new guy, Danny, as she entered the room, but a loud titter in the far side of the room stole her attention away.

 _Oh great, Paulina's in this class,_ she thought bitterly.

She sat in her too-short chair and tried not to dwell on the negative things and focus on the good. Totally ironic for a goth, right, but if she was going to get through this first day without punching a bitch so be it. Positive, like how now the perfect view out the window to the field was a dark cover of storm clouds while the rain flooded the schoolyard. The dismal look of the sky represented her real life feelings; she didn't really want to be here, with these people who cared nothing for her and an educational system that bored her. She would love to be out walking in that rain, feeling the soothing chill of it washing her skin, but here there was only one benefit to it happening on a school day. No gym! Tucker would be pleased.

"Look," she said to him, nodding her head towards the window as he took the desk to her left.

"Alright! Looks like we'll be playing dodgeball, or should I say…" he turned to look at her slowly, glasses glinting, "Get hit with the ball as fast as you can so you can sit there on your phone?"

Sam deadpanned at him, "No one would ever call it that; too long." And she actually didn't mind hitting people with balls as hard as she could; it was a good stress reliever and she was faster than she looked.

A girl with long, tightly curled dark hair scoffed as she took the seat in front of Tucker, stating the obvious that she had heard what Tucker said and what she thought of it. Sam's lip curled as she began to spit a remark, but another loud voice called across the room before she could.

"Hey Valerie! Heard you and Daddy had to move to the Westside! What's it like living with rats?" Dash taunted, a huge dick-head grin plastered onto his face.

Valerie's shoulders stiffened, but she didn't move to retaliate. Sam's cruel words died on her tongue, slightly ashamed of herself before remembering how she had treated Tucker. Sam _knew_ Valerie was aware of his crush, and it seemed like she took every opportunity to stomp on him. Sam was also aware that Valerie's dad had lost his job and the seemingly rich Gray family had suddenly fallen bankrupt, but knowing this did nothing to dampen the repugnance she had for her, the way she treated her friend.

"Leave her alone Dash! Man, didn't you guys used to be friends?" her friend's voice rang out, and Sam whipped her head to look at him. Who was this guy and what did he do with Tucker? It was only the first period and he'd already aggravated Dash twice, on purpose nonetheless?

Dash's face twisted into an ugly mean look, no longer jesting as his eyes landed on Tucker. "You better watch your step, Fo-lame, or I'm going to have to teach you your place." he threatened. Dash had really grown like Tucker had professed, and his arrogance seemed to grow with it. The threat didn't seem to _not_ have any backing judging by the way that the other football jocks tensed up. Sam was going to spit something in Tucker's place when he obviously wasn't going to say anything, but another voice interrupted her again.

"Alright everyone take your seats." It was their math teacher, who was a mousey looking man in his fifties who had a strict, stern voice. The teenagers moved to their desks uninterestedly, in a Monday sort of stupor. Sam couldn't help but sniff in distaste. She really didn't like taking on the role of mothering Tucker, but if he couldn't take care of himself what was she supposed to do? She had promised not to intervene, but if he was purposefully pissing off Dash, who was she to stand there?

Sam glanced at Tucker as she pulled her paper and pencil out, and saw he was staring at Valerie's voluminous head with doe-like eyes.

" _It's worse having a girl save you, y'know?"_ Tucker's words rang in her ears. Sam began to chew on the inside of her cheek, wondering if maybe Valerie was the reason why.

The hour-long class seemed to drag on endlessly, with the teacher rambling on about what they had learned last year and finalising the lesson with an inch thick math booklet slapping onto the desk.

Even before the bell rang, students were getting out of their desks. Both Sam and Tucker rushed out before the rest of the class (they had selected the desks closest for this very reason). Out in the hall, Sam's eyes sought out for their new friend, eyes instantly drawn to a very obvious tall body. The other students seemed to avoid him without ever touching him, like a school of fish instinctively moving around him. The situation with Dash this morning had probably spread throughout the whole school by now. His black mop of hair was getting increasingly agitated as the day went on, and his face was flushed from his forehead, to his scarlet ears, and down his neck. Sam was instantly curious as to why, but Tucker was already grabbing her by her long sleeves and pulling her towards Danny.

Tucker had opened his mouth to call his name just as another voice called out, "Danny!"

Sam and Tucker both stopped and stared in shock as Valerie Gray rushed across the hall, latching onto his arm. Tucker's jaw almost hit the floor as Sam's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "How the hell did this happen?" she whispered. Valerie was already pulling him towards his next class, while theirs were the other way.

"I don't know if I should be happy, sad, or angry." Tucker said, "Oops, nevermind, I feel nothing. Nothing at all."

Sam bumped him with her shoulder, "C'mon, man. Take it as a sign, okay? She hasn't been interested, and now we know you're not her type."

Tucker glared at her, the anger in his face making her take a step back. "Jeez, Sam. Just because _you_ have never liked anybody doesn't mean you gotta be so cruel about it." he snapped. Sam felt the quick rise of hurt in her chest at his words. How could she deny something as true as that? Sam lashed out instead.

"You gotta be blind _and_ stupid not to see what she thinks of you, Tucker! You set yourself up for this by chasing after a girl who couldn't care less if you were here or not!" she turned on her heel and started stomping in the direction of her next class, determined not to see the hurt in his face, or him see the tears stinging at her eyes.

Sam spent the entirety of her next class turning the conversation over in her head while talking half-ass notes. She still thinks she was in the right, but couldn't deny that maybe Tucker had a point. Had she been insensitive because she never liked anybody herself? Sure, she had crushes on band members or actors before, but they were nothing more than a fantasy and she knew that. None of the people around her attracted her, or even gave her a smidge of interest. She thought Tucker had thought of Valerie the same way she did about her fantasies, but had he hoped that maybe one day she would go out with him? Thinking of it that way, it made her words sting that much more. What kind of friend was she that she couldn't even be there for him when he was hurting?

She wished she had never said those words to him.

As soon as the bell rang, she shoved all her things into her bag and rushed to try and find him to apologize. They promised they would eat with Danny and how awkward would it be for the guy to be in the middle of them, fighting?

She turned the corner and ran right into a solid chest, bouncing off and almost falling to the floor. Two larger hands grabbed her shoulders to steady her, keeping her upright until she regained her balance. She had to look up to see the person's face and was surprised to see Danny giving her a goofy-looking grin.

"Sorry! I was looking to run into you, but I didn't mean literally!" Danny said, obviously proud of his pun skills.

"That's my bad," she said sheepishly, noting that his hands were still warm on her bare shoulders, "I was looking for Tucker actually. His classroom is down this hall," she said pointing.

Danny seemed to realize that he was still holding her in place and removed his hands like her skin had scalded him. Sam was torn between feeling hurt or relief, but quickly shoved those feelings down. There was already tension between her and Tucker; she didn't need this new friendship to feel awkward as well. Instead, she felt grateful that for once in her life she had another friend to turn to besides Tucker which in turn made her feel guilty as well. She didn't even really know Danny; how could she even equate their miniscule relationship to Tucker, who she had known since kindergarten?

They both turned and started walking, keeping an eye out for Tucker's telltale red beret. Sam was starting to think that maybe he went to their lunch table already when she saw him leave his classroom, a frown etched deep into his face. Sam jogged ahead of Danny, grabbing Tucker by the sleeve.

"Look, Tucker, I'm really sorry I said those things. You're right, I should have acted more like your friend than a… a… bitch," she blurted. Tucker was looking at her with wide eyes, like he couldn't believe the words coming out of her mouth. That was before a small, genuine smile crossed his face.

"It's okay Sam. I'm over it. I'm sorry I said that stuff about you, too. It's not true, y'know." Tucker said, linking her arm with his. Sam couldn't help but huff out a small laugh.

"Shut up, you know it was."

Sam looked back at Danny, who was standing there awkwardly, picking at a loose thread on his shirt. She had almost forgotten that he was there, but was glad that he had heard them making up. At least it proved that whatever had happened, they were still friends and that it was that easy to make things right between them. Sam almost felt as if she were plotting how to make him their friend; she couldn't decide if that made her a good or bad person, but she was so focussed on trying to make him comfortable around them that it didn't feel wrong.

"We almost always eat outside," she explained, "The cafeteria gets crowded really fast, and…"

"We don't really like the other kids at this school, save for a couple," Tucker finished for her.

Danny smiled, "What's it matter if you have two really good friends, right?"

Tucker and Sam smiled both in unison, glad that Danny was one of the few that thought the very same thing. They both held a new respect for Danny the more they talked to him. They found their table bench outside and, as they ate their lunch, held a sort of interview. They found out that the reason that Danny was so unfamiliar in the school was because he had been homeschooled for the past ten years. He didn't sound very happy about the adventures him and his family had gone on, but nor did he sound very happy to have settled in Amity Park.

Sam thought she understood; how could any teenager have joy in their life when stuck in close quarters with their family for an entire ten years? Tucker couldn't help but think that it was a good thing; he would love to be on a road trip with his parents instead of going to public school.

"So this must be super weird for you. Seeing teenagers in their natural environment, I mean," Tucker joked.

Danny shrugged, taking a bite of his sandwich. "Yeah, I've never really talked to kids my age before. You guys are like, the first friends I've ever had so, thanks I guess."

Sam felt a grin stretch over her face at the thought of Danny just staring at teenagers before this. He definitely seemed like the kind of guy who would just glare at people in lieu of actually talking to them. Tucker could be the same way and she endlessly poked at this flaw. It didn't matter who they were: pretty girls, other nerds, little kids. Sam would have to push them to get them into conversations even if they wanted to talk, unless Tucker was taking his father's Adderall.

"No problem," she said, ruffling his hair before she could change her mind, "You'll fit right in, nerd!"

"Ack! Hey!"

Tucker and Sam both laughed at him as he tried to flatten it back down, smile on his face.

"So, we saw you leaving class looking like Mario's hat. What was that all about?" Tucker said, suddenly remembering how embarrassed he had looked before Valerie glomped onto him.

The shy look passed over his face again without the scarlet complexion and it took him a moment to answer, mouth opening and closing a few times before the words came to him. "Somebody in class recognized my last name. Or my parents, I guess would be more accurate."

Tucker thought about it for a moment. _Fenton... Where have I seen that before?_ And like a light being switched on the circuit was complete. He slapped Sam's shoulder with the back of his hand, hitting her arm and inadvertently, her boob (it fucking hurts, man). "No way! FentonWorks?"

Sam gave a quick, hard punch back that had Tucker groaning and rubbing his arm, before she responded "Wait, that huge building on Heather Street?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

FentonWorks was the one building in the whole city that everybody could agree would be better if it never existed. It was a terrible eyesore, and constantly petitioned about. If it was just the two story building, no one would ever say anything, but the humongous, homemade observation tower on top of the building pushed it over the top.

"Holy crap, dude! People have been griping about that place for years, my parents still laugh about it."

"Yeah, and mine still bitch…"

Danny was rubbing his nape again, "Well, they'll be complaining more now that they're back in town. With all their inventions."

"So, are they like mad scientists? What the heck can they be building that's so bad? Pipe bombs?"

Sam rolled her eyes, chewing her salad. "C'mon, you know the people here. Look at Valerie's dad; people will freak out over anything."

Danny chuckled, "Do you guys want to meet them some time? They love shooting- I mean showing off their stuff."

Sam, who loved doing anything to get a rise out of her parents, especially if it was a good time, perked right up at this. Tucker knew this look instantly, and grateful for any free pass on _Sam's Homestyle Anti-Bullying Training_ ( _SHAT_ for short), jumped on this opportunity.

"Uh, we're not busy after school today. Did you… wanna hang out?"

Danny had a surprised look on his face like that was the last thing he expected. Before he could reply, the shrill sound of a bell cut him off. A grumble of swears as everybody scrambled to get their bags and books. Only once they were walking back towards the school entrance did he finally reply.

"I would love to hang out with you guys."

Sam and Tucker both beamed.

* * *

When Danny had joked about his parents showing off their inventions, Tucker had not thought that it meant that they would actually be waving them around and putting them right under their noses.

Jack and Madeline Fenton were almost insanely enthusiastic and immediately overbearing. As soon as Danny had announced his new friends, his parents had instantly jumped on them. Danny the smug bastard, sat on the couch and watched amused as the interrogation began.

"Danny-boy made friends, huh? On his first day, too!" Mr. Fenton said, clapping his massive hands onto both of their shoulders. It probably would have been more humourless considering he was 6'5 man and as wide as a dump truck if Danny wasn't doing mock bows behind him. Sam was staring up at him like he was a giant, which he was compared to the tiny 5'5" goth girl wearing two inch platform boots. Tucker was too busy trying to absorb the fact that Jack had both Danny's piercing blue eyes and smile, but his hand was taking up his whole shoulder and most of his bicep.

"Jack! Don't scare the kids! I'm Maddie, and this is my husband Jack. We're Danny's parents!" Maddie looked nothing at all like Danny except for the slim frame compared to Jack's stocky one. She talked to them almost like talking to a recently discovered alien, not sure if it spoke the same language or not. The most bizzare thing about the pair of them were the matching, form-hugging jumpsuits; his father in orange, mother in teal.

"Obviously," Danny muttered under his breath before, "Hey, uh, Sam and Tucker were interested in your inventions. Care to give them a quick demo?"

Jack looked ecstatic, almost jumping up and down, but Maddie had a look of concern, "I don't know, Danny, some of our stuff is untested and can be dangerous…"

Tucker noticed a look though. Despite the calm and an almost pleading gaze he had on his mom, Tucker could see a glint in his eyes like he knew what he wanted and was going to get it. For a second time in one day, Tucker was grateful that Danny was their friend and not a malicious person.

"C'mon Mom, you don't have to show them the prototypes or junked ones. Plus, we're almost adults! Please?"

"Yeah, c'mon Maddie!" Jack chimed in.

She looked thoughtful for a moment more before an excited look overcame her face. "Oh, alright. Come on down here, watch your step."

They were all led down a set of stairs through a heavy metal door painted a jarring yellow and black and down to the basement. As soon as they were at the bottom and they looked around, Sam and Tucker's jaws dropped.

It wasn't a basement as much as it was a chaotic mix of a garage and a lab; stainless steel tables littered with handheld tools, there were various machines for fabricating sheet metal which didn't even take up the majority of the room compared to the bins lining the walls. The bins along with the many cabinets were overflowing with the prototypes that Danny had been talking about; some were handheld devices not much bigger than a walkie-talkie, but others were clearly weapons. Pistols to rifles, bazookas and even a giant slingshot. Sam and Tucker could barely absorb it all.

Danny, with a mix of smugness and amusement on his face, said cheerfully, "That's not even all of it. The garage in the back is full."

Tucker almost wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. By the look in his eyes, he was enjoying every second of this. He was well aware of the vat of crazy he had just dunked Tucker and Sam into.

Tucker groaned, saying only so Danny and Sam could hear, "Man, why do your guy's parents have to be so nuts? I can never get you back for this! It doesn't compare to when we have a night at my place and mom makes fudge and is normal."

"Did you say fudge?" Jack interjected, immediately in their faces with what looked like a joke version of a Mac 11, with a bright green body and a black engraved 'F' on both sides. Jack was already turning it over in his hands and explaining how it works before they could answer him.

"This being one of our more rapid fire weapons, there are two safety locks. Don't even think of asking us to tell you what they are, Danny already tried-" Danny shrugged at Sam and Tucker's respective judging and praising stares, "-but if you're up against a horde of spooks, this is a life-saver! Approximately 1200 blasts per minute, this will turn them into a lake of ectoplasmic goo!"

Sam, not sure whether she was supposed to be impressed or disgusted with that last sentence but felt like the latter was the right choice, her face twisted in a grimace. "Ecto-what now?"

Maddie came back over from where she had been digging in a bin with her arms filled with various items. "Leave it to Jack to exaggerate one of our more primitive weapons. The major drawback of the Splat 11 is that it's capable of emptying a 32 fluid ounce blaster vial in about two seconds. These ones are better for sharpshooting and can last much longer and better for a faster opponent where accuracy is necessary. All our weapons use ectoplasmic energy, which is energy that ghosts use to charge blasts and we believe is what they use to keep their bodies together."

Tucker had looked nervous at the mention of ghosts, while it was Sam's turn for her eyes to light up. She loved dark, dreary things, but what trumped it all was supernatural stuff. "Ghosts?"

That was when Tucker caught sight of the monstrosity that was the back wall over Maddie's shoulder. He couldn't help but blurt the words out in surprise, "What is _that_?"

They all turned to look at it, the huge hole embedded into the wall complete with a walk-in tunnel at least six feet deep. Wires were mounted and strung along the walls and the floors, all leading to power the giant metal cave Danny had in his basement.

Danny was surprised it took them this long to notice; it had taken all his willpower not to stare and give it away. It wasn't the cherry on top of the cake, it _was_ the entire cake; he had known when he brought them over that this thing would either make or break their friendship. It wasn't his parents' career, or beliefs or even their scientific research.

It was down here, in the dark and dusty basement that smelled rich of the citrus-ey scent of ectoplasm and machine oil that held the entirety of his school life in its hands. He would either have two friends that didn't give a flying ectoplasmic fuck about his weird family or he'd spend it alone. His palms sweated while his neck and ears burned, but he knew he kept his face carefully blank.

Maddie and Jack looked almost as concerned as Danny felt at the mention of their Project Baby™. Thoughts of their failure hurt them both like a slap to the face. "Oh, that's our Ghost Zone Portal. It's a project Jack and I have been working towards for a long time. It's not operational yet, and everything about the Ghost Zone is purely hypothetical."

This almost made Danny snort; he'd read the thesis about what his parents thought this other dimension was like; let's just say, he understood why their pitches to potential investors never panned out.

"We're still working on it though! It's why we moved back to Amity Park," Jack chimed in, sounding cheerful but there was a pinch between his eyebrows that wasn't there before.

Sam and Tucker seemed to notice the instant tension; his parents were no longer smiling or enthusiastically explaining the extremities of their inventions. In short, the air was harder to breathe.

"Okay, I think that's a pretty good introduction Mom and Dad. We're going to go out for a bit."

Danny grabbed their wrists and had them both up the stairs before his parents could protest, and when they got outside the house and Danny looked at them ready to ask if they still wanted to be his friend when the expressions on their faces stopped him dead. It… was not what he was expecting at all.

Sam looked awed and it was the most expression he'd ever seen on her face. Tucker was nearly jumping up and down.

"Danny, I am so jealous. Your parents are actually _cool._ "

"Yeah dude! They're building weapons in your basement! Do you think the safety locks on that _Splat 11_ are the same as the Mac?"

"Oh innocent Tucker, I am way ahead of you. I've got a box of weapons in my closet 'cause we ran out of room. I think they've forgotten all about it. "

"Of course you guys would be all about supporting the gun propaganda."

"Hey, the Ecto-Crisis is real!"

They all paused for a second, Sam and Tucker unsure whether he was being serious or not. It only lasted a second before Danny burst into giggles and then into full belly laughs when they joined in.

It seemed that he did not need to ask whether they were his friends. After this day it seemed as if their connection had been set in stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I totally head canon Sam as demisexual, but y'all can see her and Tucker however you'd like :)
> 
> As always, I would love to hear what you think and if y'all have any favourite bits. I try to be funny, but it's always good to know when your shit sense of humour tickles someone else. 
> 
> KUDOS/COMMENTS are very appreciated and brings a tear to me eye :')


	6. FOUR - BETWEEN NORMAL AND PORTAL (VALERIE/DANNY)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song : Nice Out by Kilo Kish
> 
> _"I'm afraid to go outside_  
>  _So many people rule my mind_  
>  _I can't escape where is the line_  
>  _Chained ourselves to overdrive"_  
>  WARNINGS : Slight, mild underage sexual content (kissing, heavy petting)

"Hey! Danny!" Valerie called as soon as she caught sight of that telltale mop of dark hair and leather jacket. He was walking with Manson and Foley, already almost inseparable in less than a week. Valerie couldn't help the rise of bitter feelings over this; Tucker did nothing but annoy her by pining after her and Sam was a whole other story. The instant rise of tension between the two girls was mostly uncalled for and based on personal feelings, but was mutual. That didn't mean she wasn't going to push through it so she could keep talking to a guy she liked- not to mention, only guy that liked her (Tucker didn't count).

Danny stopped to look at her and after a quick dismissal to his friends began walking back towards her. Valerie was kind of surprised they didn't hang around.

"Hey, Val! What's going on?" he said cheerfully, his face split in a wide grin. She was filled with a warmth at the greeting; his genuinity and kindness almost overwhelmed her, especially after months of an ice-cold shoulder from her peers. She curled a strand of hair around her finger before:

"Nothing, really. I was just curious if you maybe wanted to get dinner or see a movie or something. You know, together." She almost slapped herself; what else could she mean other than a date? How to be subtle, yeesh! The instant heat of embarrassment filled her face, but Valerie could only blink at him when he replied.

"Sure! Sam, Tuck and I were going to see the Chainsaw Slasher Massacre Six tomorrow. We're not sure whether the Chainsaw Slasher is doing the massacring or a bunch of Chainsaw Slashers getting massacred. It's a mystery, I guess. Did you wanna come?"

Valerie stared at him, unsure of the words to say. Before, when she was an A-Lister, she never would have dreamed of asking a guy out. Doing such a thing while popular would instantly kill a girl's reputation; not only were you now labeled desperate, but words like 'easy' and 'slut' were thrown around. After that, not even the local adults and teachers showed respect, or even sympathy. But after this summer, Valerie knew she was better than such a thing; she didn't want to participate in the shaming, and now that her family's reputation was already tarnished she really didn't care what others thought anymore. She'd seen enough girls cry from shaming, but she wasn't going to let it stop her. But looking into Danny's open face, she realised he wasn't turning her down gently like a nice guy would, or even pretending to not know what she meant so it would be dropped. His expression was eager and genuine, and completely clueless of what she was truly asking of him. It was cute, in a dorky sort of way. Valerie took a deep breath.

"I was hoping that it could be just the two of us. Kinda like a date." _Exactly like a date,_ she didn't add.

God, were her ears burning? She prayed that he couldn't tell that her skin was on fire, because it sure felt like it was obvious. She didn't look away from him however, no matter how much that embarrassment crawled up her neck urged her to turn her eyes away. Her hardship paid off as she watched the blood fill his face up to his ears and forehead. Now it was his turn to feel the heart-throbbing experience of getting asked out in a high school hallway; the burn of the imaginary eyes of everyone in the building, the shock of never seeing it coming, the gut clenching feeling of deciding what to say. The feelings applied to anyone who wasn't indifferent like Paulina, regardless of whichever way ones's feelings swayed. Valerie couldn't seem to swallow the lump in her throat as she tried to discern which she was to Danny.

It took almost a minute for Danny to respond, opening and closing his mouth four times before he found his voice. Teenagers drifted by them, not paying them any attention. What a shame, she realized now; people didn't really care and she'd been missing out relationships in her cowardice. While Danny gaped and stuttered, she came to a conclusion, his utter shock a delicious source for her ego. This must be the first time he'd ever been asked out. Eventually, Danny stilled like he'd come to a conclusion, took a deep breath and lifted his eyes to hers.

"I would love to, Val," he said, his blue eyes seeming to glow. She could hardly look away, and before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned in and planted a quick kiss to his cheek.

"Awesome! I'll call you. See ya, Danny." She said it quickly, turned and waved before practically running down the hall, heart pounding like a galloping stallion.

* * *

There were only two present when Damon Gray was fired, only him and his boss. It had started as one of the proudest days of his life; the security building he'd designed was finally complete. It was like watching a dream come to life; he'd imagined it being finalized for so long it was surruel now that it was coming to fruition. The building had been under construction for so long it felt like eternity. The weight was beginning to lift off his shoulders, just for a moment he'd tasted the sweet relief of stress, before it all came crashing back down around him. He'd had a meltdown in front of his boss who held the entirety of his reputable business in his hands, not for bad reason, no, because of something only he could see.

A floating, impenatrable dog about the size of a bulldozer came flying through his doors; doors he'd designed and tested to _be_ impenetrable, then a monster dog went literally _through_ them and left them on their hinges like nothing. That should have been a clue to Damon, but he was so preoccupied with the fact that his designs had failed (and really, nothing was fail-proof to a ghost unless it was designed mostly by Madeline Fenton) he'd panicked. He set the alarms off, sending the entire building into lockdown mode which simultaneously called the police and fire department and promoted the fiasco to more people. His boss had fired him on the spot, sensing that he was unstable and irrational and not entirely wrong.

And the thing was, he would've gone immediately to a psychiatric professional if he didnt know for a fact that Valerie saw it too. It taunted him again after he left the building, after he'd been _fired_ for the first time ever, and plowed right through him and his daughter on the sidewalk. Thankfully, they weren't hurt other than the faint chill in their bodies, but the look on Valerie's face and the quick, silent scream she gave before it made contact with him said enough. She saw it, Damon _knew._ He wasn't losing his mind.

That small comfort didn't do much; word quickly spread through the town, to his investors and any potential customers and just as fast as it started did it end. Damon found he couldn't afford his mortgage on his house, he was so bankrupt the banks took almost everything he had. Thankfully, he found a job at an electronics store where the owner didn't take heed to rumors (probably the only person in Amity) and Damon could afford a small one bedroom apartment on the Westside of town. It wasn't much; the place had more problems than not, which the landlord refused to fix out of his own pocket, but it was roof over their heads. Damon never came from money, so it wasn't all that unfamiliar, but it didn't go unnoticed how badly it affected Valerie. Her friends dumped her, she no longer had the comforts money could buy, and he'd done everything to prevent her from getting a job to pitch in until it was no longer feasible. It was a terrible shock for both of them; either the cupboards would stay empty of food or he would have to rely on his teenage daughter. It wasn't even a choice, in the end.

That's why three days out of the week after school, Valerie was stuffed into a rancid, sweaty mascot suit shaped like an ant, or a roach she wasn't sure, and forced to promote the Nasty Burger. Thankfully, the other two shifts a week were spent behind the counter taking orders, but still sweaty and rancid.

Needless to say, she didn't have much time to herself anymore. That was why even though she was excited for her date with Danny more than anything in her life at the moment, it kept getting pushed down by other things until she forgot she committed. So when she left out the alley door in her clothes that still smelled of grease to find Danny smoking by the dumpster, not unlike the first time they met, she was surprised to see him.

"You forgot, eh?"

Valerie was about to open her mouth to protest, but there was a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eye. He passed his smoke to her and she took it gratefully. It was easily a peace offering of no hard feelings. Valerie wondered how she got so lucky.

"Yeah, sorry Danny. This weeks been shit, I'm glad it's ending with you," she thought after it left her mouth it might be a little cheesy, but he was beaming at her so she continued, "I feel all gross in these clothes, do you mind if we go to my place to change?"

Danny didn't, as she already knew he wouldn't. He was so easy-going it was such a welcomed change of pace to her life that now seemed to be a speed train going down the tracks out of control. He made her stop and look out the window instead of what was just coming up ahead. Actually enjoy life for once.

They were quietly walking down the sidewalk, passing their smoke back and forth with dumb doe-eyed expressions at each other, when the atmosphere changed. Not just between them, no. Sunset had already begun when she got off at eight, casting the streets in a rose-colored hue. Like the snap of a finger, it was if the moon passed in front of the sun; everything darkened it a purple, every tiny shadow now seemed endless in depth, there was a sudden chill unbecoming of barely Autumn evening that cut right to the bone, and there was a bright green glare that pinged off of every reflective surface right into Valerie's eyes. She recognized it instantly, and was even more surprised when Danny did too.

He dropped to the ground, quickly slinging his backpack off his shoulder in a quick, sure motion. He had it opened before it even touched the sidewalk. Valerie didn't even recognize she was shaking his shoulder a little hysterically, not even noticing the tiny rounded spikes of his jacket digging into her hand.

"Danny, we gotta go. Like right now."

"I know, Val, I just gotta- aha!"

He pulled something out of it and she stared at him blankly, her frustration causing her to shake him a little harder, his long body weaving like those wiggling snake toys she had as a kid. "And why is lipstick going to help us?"

Danny unfolded out of his crouch and slung his backpack back on. He took her hand that was on his other shoulder, keeping the green lipstick container in his hand. His hand was gentle in hers, and so very warm, but his shoulders were tense and his eye kept flicking around.

"Valerie, do you not listen to gossip?"

She squeezed his hand threateningly, suddenly much calmer than she was before. She started pulling him towards her house. They were less than two blocks away. "Not unless I want to hear nasty things about myself. Why?"

"So you haven't heard things about the Fenton's, or about what they… do."

"C'mon, Danny, spit it out!"

"They're self-proclaimed ghost hunters, alright? It's silly whether you believe them or not, but something tells me you do. There's one around here right now, a big one judging by the level of atmospheric changes."

She whimpered, thinking of that dog. Valerie wasn't scared of anything; she was aware of her own strength and capabilities. She was the only black belt in her class other than her teacher, and she played many rough, body-contact sports that kept her fit and alert. She prided herself on it; being able to take care of herself, especially in a "man's world". That damn dog was the first thing that ever scared her. She couldn't touch it, couldn't defend herself against it, and was just left stewing in that fact that if it ever came around again she'd be helpless. Then here was Danny; sweet, kind, gentle Danny, knowing the one thing she didn't. Normally, this would have pissed her off in an envious way. Right now, she just squeezed his hand and pulled him closer, thankful he was her (boy?)friend.

"My dad freaked over a ghost at work and they fired him. That's why everyone looks down on us now. It charged both of us once, it's a big-"

"Uh, dog?" Danny interrupted, pointing down an alley.

There were two, giant red eyes staring them down and once noticed that it was noticed, began growling something fierce. A bright, green glow spiked up, illuminating the body of what looked like a doberman that should never be that tall, or wide. It dwarfed the dumpster next to it. Valerie didn't even notice herself squeak and latch onto Danny's arm, pressing so close as if to hide herself in him. The monster ghost-dog seemed to sense her fear and charged. Valerie's feet were like her eyes, totally stuck seeing how it played out. Danny popped the cap off his lipstick with one hand, raised it and did something that resulted in a slight fizzle and blast of light. Green energy (?) hit the cement at the end of the alley and the dog screeched to a halt before the scorch mark that was still slightly smoking.

"Nu-uh. Bad dog." Danny called, as calm as if talking to a puppy and not something _metres tall._

When the dog turned and ran the other way, dispersing into a green mist at the end and taking its weird 'atmospheric changes' with it, it was all eclipsed by the bright grin Danny turned on her.

"Still a dog, I guess. Dead dog, but still a dog."

The absurdity of it all made her laugh, and that was when she realised she was still latched onto him like an octopus. She detached herself a little bit, still holding onto his arm but loose enough that he could still walk. Valerie had no way to explain the heat pooling in her gut, but she knew damn well what it was. She'd never felt safer.

"C'mon, let's get you home, Val."

* * *

Danny definitely wasn't thinking about Valerie. No way. At all.

He wasn't thinking of the way she held his hand like it was surest thing to do, he wasn't thinking about the way she latched onto his him when the dog reared up, wasn't thinking of the way her breasts slotted around his arm and her hot breath on his neck, the way the curve of her body fit so nicely around his jagged edges, they way she looked at him when he shot at the dog and it turned-tail, they way he felt so proud and protective-

And he definitely wasn't thinking about how, when she came out the bathroom after a shower in her t-shirt and shorts, damp hair curling down her chest and dripping, how she took his face in her gentle hands and kissed him with fervour.

He definitely wasn't thinking about it now, when he felt her bare knee brush his hand as she straddled on one side to get closer. Valerie's hair was dripping on him, causing cool wet spots on his neck and chest, but he didn't care. His lizard brain finally caught up to what was happening, and Danny started tentatively kissing back. He'd never kissed anyone before, but Valerie was nothing but an enthusiastic teacher. She gave the barest hint of a moan when he sucked and pulled at her bottom lip- what a sweet, sweet reward that was. It was when her hand felt down his chest and picked up his hand that was wrinkling her duvet and put it on her knee that he took a shuddering breath and pulled back.

"Valerie-," he gasped when she started kissing his jaw, down the line of his Adam's apple. He forgot what he was going to say as he tilted his head so she could keep sending those electric jolts of pleasure down his spine. She hummed when his fingers slid up the inside of her shorts, feeling the muscles of her thigh. When did his other hand get on her waist, trying to pull her closer when he knew he should do anything but? His skin was on fire and the longing in his belly was beginning to worry him, but her lips were so soft…

He tilted his head down, catching her lips again and trying to pull her closer. Her breasts were warm and soft even through the fabric of their clothes and her wet hair was a shocking reminder that this was real, it was happening. He had a beautiful girl practically astride in his lap and _she_ was kissing _him._ Well, it started that way. Now he was just an excited participant, sneaking his hand under the hem of her shirt to touch the base of her spine. She arched against him and moaned something that sounded suspiciously like _more_ and swiped a tongue into his mouth. He felt her other leg dip the bed at his side, and her weight was on him, and it was so addictive he couldn't stop. Danny let her taste him, tilting his jaw back with a shaky hand as she guided him with her tongue. He made the decision to pull his hand away from the heat of her bare thigh and back to grip her ass so she wouldn't slide off him. She gave an angry hum when he removed his hands, but the grind she gave when he gripped her butt was worth it. Danny gave an experimental squeeze and she twitched.

It was a shame they had to break apart for oxygen, but the gasping coming from both of them clearly said they needed it. The air helped slightly clear his head and he remembered what he was going to tell her, which was _definitely_ more noticeable than before. Straining, even. He'd be embarrassed about it even she wasn't giving him such a dumb, happy smile with pretty flushed cheeks.

"Val, we gotta stop or this is going to end Highschool Confidential style," he continued at her cocked eyebrow, "Y'know, cream my jeans?"

She laughed and playfully pushed a shoulder, before giving him a look with an evil glint that had him instantly suspicious. He jumped when he felt her hand at the top of his jeans. She pulled at them, acting like she could peek through the gap and see underneath, as if the tent in his pants wasn't obvious enough. He pursed his lips, trying to mock annoyance. "C'mon Val."

Her hands on his shoulders were a surprise and she pushed him back on the bed, that glint only getting stronger. "You don't have to cream your jeans, if you don't want. A girl is very good with her mouth, _y'know_."

Danny stared up with her, brain going in fried, short-circuit circles. He was caught between the endless loop of _God Yes!_ and _Maybe we should wait until, I don't know, the third date? Or marriage?_ He was still stuck even when her grin spread across her face like she knew she had him right where she wanted him, hands undoing his button, pulling down his fly, the barest brush of fingers through his underwear-

"Valerie, I'm home!" Came a booming loud voice compared to their soft, heavy breaths, followed by the slam of the front door. They both stared at each other in horror, and Danny had never felt himself deflate so quickly.

"I'm just getting changed, Daddy, I'll be right there. Dinner's in the mic." she lied expertly. She did up his fly and button and gave him a sad smile. He went to get up but her hand on his shoulder again kept him down. She crawled up to his face and gave him a passionate, but less heated, kiss. "I'm sorry, Danny," she whispered into his mouth, "We'll have to do this another time. Do you mind sneaking out the fire escape?" He grinned against her lips, kissing her back. "Hmm dangerous, I like it."

She gave a small laugh and rolled off him. He grabbed his bag, gave her a small smile and see ya, and disappeared into the night.

She found the Fenton Lipstick placed with care on her nightstand table before she turned off her light, and fell asleep with a smile on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy don't know where that shit came from... was gonna write a nice date scene but the horny shit just came out sorry.
> 
> ALL comments and kudos get read and looked at like 40 times so thank you!!
> 
> ITS ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE KIDS, WELCOME TO HELL


	7. FIVE - ACCIDENT (DANNY)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song : Glass Heart Hymn by Paper Route  
> " _I am empty_  
>  _In my end you are my beginning_  
>  _There's a ghost in the mirror_  
>  _I'm afraid more than ever_  
>  _My feet have led me straight into my grave."_
> 
> WARNINGS : uh death? y'all know the drill

Imagine this: multiple packs of hyenas locked in a small, rectangular all-together _boring_ building with cramped hallways and nowhere else to go for eight hours. In this scenario, there is an inevitable outcome of scrapping and nipping until the eventual eventuality of an all out fight. It isn't because these hyenas are bad to the core or have the initial intention for violence (some would argue, but alas), but it tends to happen when faced with hunger, or boredom, or frustration, or stress or whatever else. It's just shitty food that is either quickly devoured or discarded to be devoured by another before the day is done, and nothing else that is rather stimulating. It wasn't the same for all the packs, how they coped, but it was rather easy for the majority to find things to preoccupy themselves with, usually tormenting one another.

Obviously, these weren't really hyenas and were actually high-school students, but the difference was really only the six chromosomes. It was fascinating to watch and observe, but Danny wondered if eventually he would begin to play. It would be so easy to, when Sam and Tucker were already a team. The machine clogged once in a while, but when it was running it was smooth and efficient. Danny was, at his worst, bitingly sarcastic and he was excellent at deadpanning, but he tried not to be intentionally mean. To a point, and depending on his mood. Tucker was quick to judge and Sam could be so apathetically cold it could burn. Danny wanted to be a part of their pack, but he liked Valerie and she was definitely _Not._

So, he was nervous to say the least. He couldn't stop adjusting his coat like it didn't fit right, and his skin didn't feel natural. Lies- even secrets- set him on the precipice of a bottomless, empty pit.

Danny didn't quite know how to breach the subject of his interaction with Valerie with them. It was definitely a date, she had established _that_ with the chaste kiss to his cheek when she asked him out and then everything else that followed which was everything _but_ chaste, but what he didn't understand was _why._ What he did know was that there was a history between Valerie, Sam and Tucker. It instantly caused tension when he brought it up with any of them and he was even subtle about it! Sam was full out denial, but was also the Queen of Dirty Looks whether she denied that too. Tucker just seemed embarrassed and refused to talk about it, instead just cleaned his glasses/ignored him until Danny talked about something else. Valerie was worse than both of them put together, because she too would say nothing but would hint at disliking them. Danny hated this tension with everything he had, wanting it to just disappear. He liked Valerie just as much as he liked Sam and Tucker, but he wanted to hang out all together too. He didn't want to have to split his time between them because all that would do is aggravate the situation. He felt guilty about the selfish nature of his wants, but he couldn't help but excuse it by the solidarity that their fight was petty, and he suspected it had been established long before highschool. Whatever that situation was, it made it impossible. Sam didn't want to be around her at all, and Tucker wouldn't even hear of it. He wouldn't dare bring it up to Valerie until he figured them out first.

So that left him sitting on a huge secret from his new best friends, all while not being able to figure out what Valerie saw in him. All throughout lunch, Danny had to listen to Sam go on about how cool it was that his parents were inventors slash researchers, and most of all, studied the coolest subject of all: ghosts. If that wasn't what she was so excited about, he would have spilled about Valerie.

Danny had seen T.V. shows online about ghost hunters, or paranormal trackers, or U.F.O. spotters, whatever you want to call it. To him and his sister, they were embarrassing. Outwardly, anyways. Jazz definitely saw it as a nuisance, while Danny secretly still thought it was kind of cool. It was almost _brave_ of his parents to pursue a career that the entire world thought was a myth. To the same degree, he also knew of the ridicule that one would get if they associate themselves with something as silly as ghosts. Or even trying to prove ghosts were real; even with all the proof his parents had gathered over the years, people still scoffed at their findings. Danny had learned one thing through it all: even if you told the truth, _gave proof of the truth,_ some would still think you a liar and others would follow.

That was what made Sam and Tucker so refreshing: even without Danny showing proof, when he said he had seen ghosts, tried to _fight_ them, they had believed him without a single doubt. They had asked questions, duh, but still they believed his answers. But still, Sam and her ferocity kind of scared him.

"I mean ghosts, what are they _like_?"

"Old ladies that throw cookies?" Tucker supplied.

"I was thinking more about wraiths and poltergeists and stuff. You know, spooky shit."

Danny felt his face go unnaturally tight as he forced a smile. Tucker laughed and made a joke about how Sam _would_ like that kind of stuff, but neither of them knew how close to the truth she really was. The ghosts that Danny had met, no matter how motivated and deranged they were, there was one thing in common. They were there for a specific purpose, they had a drive. Whether that drive was to specifically terrorize people or not, it didn't matter; people always ended getting terrorized in the process. In the end, that's what made his neck hair stand up and his palm sweat when Sam talked about it as casually as she did. He didn't know whether he should laugh it off, or tell her the straight up truth; that ghosts could hurt people, _had_ hurt him, and that they could be goddamn paralyzing in the fear they instilled. He didn't know how to explain the way the atmosphere could change with a ghost's emotions, how the temperature of the frozen air chilled right to the bone. Danny decided to go for a slight mix of the two.

"Honestly, there's both," he leaned in real close, adjusting his coat and they followed him in, eyes suddenly wide by his serious tone, "There's ghosts with a hundred legs and a thousand fangs suddenly looking at you with way too many eyes like they want to eat you and then…" he pauses and leans ever closer, both of them mimicking him, "-WOULD YOU LIKE SOME COOKIES?" he said in a thunderous voice and made insect like clicking noises.

Tucker cackled while Sam pushed his shoulder and scoffed. "Seriously."

"Seriously, Sam?" her nod affirmed it and he sighed, knowing at least he'd warned her off, "These things can be so horrifying your brain can't even imagine it up. Other times, they can be as kind and gentle as a real grandmother. My parents swear that's never the case, but Jazz and I have seen differently."

He shook his arms to loosen the sleeves of his coat when they looked at each other, hoping they wouldn't notice his weird flapping motion. He'd shaken his right arm out by the time they looked back and he raised his hand so they could see the underside of his forearm. There were three parallel gashes about four inches in length there, blemishing his skin forever. They were deep, and two of the stitches had been done by his mother, healing perfectly, but the third had been done by Jazz. Her first time, insisted by their mother. He still teased his sister about the ugly way it had healed. Still, the whole of it was quite an gruesome sight. "This was done by a ghost when I was twelve. It's not the first, if you can believe that." They both looked rather surprised now, and it seemed to have stunned them into silence.

Danny put his arm back through his sleeve and straightened his jacket for the umpteenth time that day, having felt uncomfortable in his skin all day since he woke up. Neither of them had said anything about it, so he assumed they didn't notice his random anxiety. He waited patiently for the question he was sure she would inevitably come to since being in his basement. He was pleased to find that she had enough wit to get there quickly.

"And your parent's portal? Is there any legitimacy to that?"

Danny was smiling before she finished talking, adjusting his coat again and absentmindedly replying, "No idea, sweetheart."

He missed Sam's surprised look as Tucker asked another question. "Can we check it out?"

Sam's look quickly changed to a chastising one, "Tucker!"

"What! I know that you want to see the structural design just as much as I want to see the mechanical and electrical!"

Danny raised an eyebrow, "You guys really want to look at that stuff?"

"Well, yeah. Didn't you ever want to know how your parents built their inventions?"

"Well, yeah, I photocopy all the blueprints. And I guess we could go check it out after school, my parents are at some convention in Niagara and they took poor Jazz with them."

* * *

It went by so quickly once they were there. They were laughing, joking as they came in the door. Comfortable at the fact that nobody else was there and they could be as loud as they wanted without being reprimanded. They carried their bags down into the basement where he pulled out said blueprints and explained how his parents had assembled it. Thief prevention or copyright was solely dependent on his father's illegible handwriting and his mom's photographic memory. They inspected the machine and Sam wanted to venture inside and that filled Danny with an unwarranted panic. Nobody had ever entered the portal before, and it didn't sit right somehow for it not to be a Fenton. He took a deep breath, smiled for Sam's phone and entered the portal. Everything before that was now insignificant, there were only three things he knew positively. The brush of his hand over something with give on the wall, a resounding click, and that everything after that was a thousand years in the blink of an eye.

One of the first things Danny registered into the "Not Right" category was the bone-chilling cold that spread throughout his entire body. It was as if he had drunk liquid nitrogen, like something with deathly cold hands had reached into his chest, clutched his heart and had his arteries to his veins freezing solid. It terrified him, how he could feel the tracing of his blood vessels throughout his body: blood pumping out of his left ventricle to his aorta, up to his brain through the carotid artery, down the iliac artery, numbing his body all the way down to his toes. This feeling consumed his every thought, a chilly blanket shrouding his mind. Everything from seeing the flash of hypnotising green engulf him, to the acidic sting of citrus assaulting his eyes and nose. Even the weightlessness his body had gained, as if his body was tethered to this earthly plane by a fishing line; It was all shadowed by the harrowing feeling of freezing solid, inside out.

The irregular beating of his heart was the second thing he noticed. Danny could feel his heart thrum like a kick drum in his chest, the tattoo abnormally long and slow. Time had slowed down; the blood flow in his body sluggish, his breathing halting, and his digestive tract coming to a stop. Danny had never imagined he would feel the sympathetic nervous system so deeply he could feel the changes his body was instinctively making for him. It wasn't just the simplistic feeling of his lungs and chest expanding. He could feel the oxygen choke in his throat while the acid in his stomach settled like concrete. The fear, the anticipation of waiting for the next beat of his heart, for the contraction of the diaphragm before his next breath was almost agonizing. Once the pain registered, Danny quickly forgot about those things.

Suddenly, a snap in the universe, something had lit every one of Danny's nerves on fire; his teeth were clenched so tight it felt like they could be cracking, his back was bent at an unnatural angle that would be more than uncomfortable if it hadn't felt like there were a million angry hornets trapped inside his skull. Danny was convinced that his leather jacket was melting to his skin as well as the rest of his clothes. However, the worst part of it was when his mouth finally pried open and his ears popped, he could hear himself.

The sound crawling up his throat was horrible to listen to; embarrassing, in a sick sort of way that Danny couldn't help feeling through it all. It was a terrible kind of wail, something in between the scream of a banshee and the howl of a scared, lonely dog.

For a split second, the pain stopped. It was as if God had granted a brief reprieve from his own death. Everything had stilled, from the electricity tracing up his skin to his screaming. His heart was no exception. If he could suck in a breath to laugh, he would. The irony of dying, alone, inside the stomach of your parent's invention. What a fool he was to crawl inside the belly of the beast and forget it's primal function. Another split second and the pain was back, along with his wretched wailing. But there was something just beyond that noise that Danny could almost hear; a strange kind of sobbing and shouting that wasn't coming from him.

_Tucker and Sam._

Oh god, his friends. Danny wasn't alone: his first, real best friends were listening to him die and he was too occupied with his own pain to be able to do anything about it. And for the first time in years, Danny began to pray to a God he wasn't even sure about, praying that this living nightmare would stop and his friends would stop screaming his name.

Eventually the wailing stopped, the lights dimmed and the cold went away. Danny was left with the pain ripping down his throat as he tried to suck in air, the pounding sound of his heart in his ears, beating regular now, and an odour that was beginning to register in his brain as the smell of cooking flesh.

He tried to step towards the sound of their voices and the last thing he thought about before passing out was 'I hope Tucker doesn't think I'm betraying him if I become a vegetarian.'

* * *

_Smack. Smack._

Danny registered the noise first before he realized that said noise was someone slapping his cheek. He pried his eyes open, his vision cloudy and feeling like gross eye gunk was sealing his eyes closed. There's almost like a weird film in front of everything, making the contrast of colors more blinding and sharp, the glow of lights brighter in his eyes. So bright it hurt and he almost wished he hadn't opened them. He's glad he did when he sees the worried-slash-terrified expression on Sam and Tucker's faces. They both looked sweaty, clammy with their eyes almost sinking into their heads.

"Danny? Are you okay?" Tucker said when Sam's mouth just wordlessly opened and closed.

"Peachy," he rasped, pulling himself somewhat off the floor and propping himself up on his elbow. "What happened?"

"The portal- it turned on," Sam finally said, glancing at Tucker, "While you were inside. You were screaming.. Don't you remember?"

"It- the portal did what?" Danny looked at the wall the portal was mounted into. Now an incredible green mass swirled around in it; somehow it seemed to be content in the wall. Danny's fried brain could barely absorb the fact that a substance that seemed to be a liquid and a gas at the same time wasn't spilling onto the floor, much less absorb the fact that he'd been inside when it….

"How am I even alive? That's- that's" Danny said, baffled.

"Well," Sam started, but Danny kept going.

"The amount of electricity that is needed to power the portal is just.. It's just insane! And that's not even accounting the amount of force that the ectoplasmic blast would create inside of it. There's no possible way that-"

"Danny!" Sam shouted urgently, glancing at Tucker again. "The blast did something to you. Can you walk?"

Danny tried to stand up, but it kept feeling like his feet were sinking through the floor. But other than the weariness that seemed to seep throughout his whole body, he was relatively A-OK. While Sam and Tucker may have had to drag him up two flights of stairs to the bathroom, it didn't seem like anything was broken or wrong. Tucker sat on the edge of the tub, Sam jumping up on the sink counter. Danny seemed calm and, under the circumstances of what could which nothing be could be called so, normal.

And then he saw his reflection.

"What is that," he said, pointing at the mirror.

"Uhh, you?" Tucker replied tentatively, not interested in pointing out the growing _glowing_ elephant in the room. Danny leaned in closer to the mirror until his crooked nose was mere centimetres from his reflection, turning his head either way like it would distort the picture.

"What, in the future? My hair isn't supposed to look like that until I'm mid-forties!"

"I think you mean eighties.."

"My eyes… they're fucking glowing.."

"Dude, are you gonna pass out again?"

"I don't know! Maybe! Tuck, my eyes are green!"

Tucker and Sam looked at each other, both at a loss of what to do. They've never heard him swear, let alone look so freaked out. Their new friend seemed to become more and more exasperated, but they felt determined to help Danny; not because of guilt, but because he was cool and nice and funny, and most importantly, their friend. He was beginning to frantically pull at his leather jacket which was glowing an eerie white and then at his white hair when his coat wouldn't budge. Sam had to steady the tremors in her hands at the glimpse of the spikes in his coat- sharper and longer now- almost fused to his skin at the shoulder.

So they sat Danny on the toilet, rubbed his back, and stayed with him until his cheeks were dry and a blinding light filled the room. Tucker and Sam were both left blinking stars out of their eyes. It was as if a flash bomb had gone off in the cramped little bathroom; all they could see was white and their ears were ringing. Dizzy, Sam reached out for Danny's shoulder to steady herself, at the same time she heard Danny mutter "What the hell". Just as her vision came back, her hand clapped onto his shoulder and he was looking right at her, blue eyes wide. She could see Tucker staring at Danny behind his shoulder with the exact same shocked expression that they were all wearing. Danny's shoulder, bare, cold and _naked_ under her fingers.

Then he was gone, just blinked out of existence like a light going out.

"What the fuck is goin' on," Tucker whispered.

After the flash of light, Danny had looked like he had before the accident. His hair was raven black instead of that iridescent white, his skin had lost the lifeless, green tone it had gained. Sam didn't know what to say but she could still feel Danny motionless under her hand. She had to say something. "Danny?"

"I think I'm dead," she heard him whisper. "I'll be right back. I'm gonna get some clothes."

And then he was gone and Sam was left to stare at Tucker, left with Danny's words to sink in and settle uncomfortably. "There's no way," she whispered, "I killed him?"

Tucker looked at her sharply, eyes boring into her as he got up and stood in front of the sink. He clasped her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him and it did nothing to quell the guilt spreading in her chest.

"Sam, focus. You didn't kill him, alright? He's right here, talking to us, yelling at us, being naked in front of us-"

"OK!" she hissed, pushing at him. She was determined to never, ever bring that up again. "So what, he's like, half dead?"

"Maybe, a Hybrid?" Danny muttered as he entered the bathroom, closing the door behind him, now wearing a band t-shirt and baggy pants. Sam started, thinking maybe he had heard their conversation but he was busy rubbing his eyes, muttering to himself. Then he blinked at them, as if remembering they were still there.

"Oh sorry. You guys can go home if you want, I'm sure this has freaked you out."

Tucker almost laughed cause Danny looked more freaked out than either of them, but before he could point this out Danny seemed to be… getting shorter. In about 3 seconds Tucker went from looking up at him to looking at him dead on and it wasn't until that moment that he shot forward, grabbing Danny under the armpit and hauling him up. Danny was spluttering, staring at his feet that had been sinking right through the floor.

Sam snorted, and then was laughing. "Oh man, there's no way that we're leaving after that! C'mon Danny, do you seriously think we'd ditch you to go invisible or some shit in front of your parents or something?"

Danny groaned, pulling at his hair, "My parents! Oh man, if this didn't kill me, _they_ will!" Tucker snorted and Danny grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him slightly. "Seriously, Tucker! They cannot know we were down there. They'll think that it was a power surge or something, hopefully."

"How did it turn on, anyways?" asked Sam.

"I think… I remember… I pushed something. There was a switch or something on the inside."

Suddenly, a big bang came from downstairs and loud voices filled the house. The trio were all still whispering because they felt they should. This was a secret now; and the highest risk people just came barging in the house. Danny jumped and threw up the bathroom door open, hissing "C'mon! The first thing my dad has to do when he gets home-!"

Tucker and Sam didn't need to be told twice as they rushed out of the room, following Dany down the hall to his room. Just as they gently let the door latch they could hear heavy footsteps rushing up the stairs and down to the bathroom.

"He does that every time?" Tucker asked, grinning. At Danny's nod, Tucker rubbed his chin, "Interesting."

"Not really," Sam said, plopping down on the rolling chair near the computer along the wall. Danny sat on the bed, Tucker sat on a box left unpacked.

"Are you kidding? If we're going to be sneaking around here now cause Danny's got ghost sickness, it's nice to know what distracts the father. Example: your dad's is sport. Any sport. All you gotta do is switch on the radio to any sports station, and you've easily earned a five minute distraction."

Sam rolled her eyes and mock laughed, "Very funny."

Danny couldn't help but actually laugh, leaning back on the bed. Comfortable. Despite the circumstances that, alone, would have had Danny pulling out his own hair, he was actually comfortable. "Yeah, my dad's food. Honestly, place anything on the table and the smell will have him come running. There, you got yourself a twenty minute distraction."

Sam and Tucker laughed too.

He ended up pulling out the sleeping bags that his father had crushed into the upper hallway closet for Sam and Tucker. They both called their parents and said they were at the others for a sleepover. Danny was sickly nervous about the lie, but they both reassured him. It wasn't uncommon for them to have sleepovers, for Sam to get away from her parents or Tucker would come over when she couldn't. And they both assured him that their parents wouldn't talk to each other. It was laughable.

It was dark outside now and they were all whispering when Danny stopped mid-sentence. A couple seconds later, there was a knock on the door. Maddie's voice rang out loud in the quiet. "Danny, dear, are you in there?"

Danny stuck out his tongue with a raised eyebrow, very mocking and rude, but it was quickly replaced with his usual deadpan. He cleared his throat and there was a minor rasp to his voice when he replied, "Yeah, I'm okay Mom, I'm just not feeling well. I'm gonna sleep it off."

Maddie's voice sounded sincere as she asked him if he was alright and if he needed anything, but Danny's stony face didn't change. When he told her no, she was quick to leave. Sam could barely believe it; her own mother would have bust down the door with her dainty gloves and stilettos before leaving her to her own devices when sick. When Danny looked at them however, he never had that sarcastic or deadpan look. It was just him, happy, shy and open for them to see.

"You guys are my first sleepover, did you know that? What should we do? Pizza?"

Sam and Tucker were equally excited; his good mood was infectious. Sam called it in and relayed Danny's weird instructions.

"How are we going to get it up here without them knowing?" Tucker asked.

"By moving your butt," Danny replied, grabbing and opening the box he had been sitting on. Tucker didn't notice, but it was labelled 'Functioning Ghost Catchers'. They both stared, wide-eyed at the crap he was pulling out. A retractable, odd looking fishing rod, a small bug catcher that turned into a very large bug catcher when the button was activated ("Tucker, I wouldn't press tha-", _KCHICK!,_ "AHHH!"), and by Danny's very triumphant _Ah Ha!,_ a tool used to get pizza from a second story window.

"What is it?" Sam asked, looking very skeptical.

"The Fenton Fetcher," Danny said proudly, "it was designed to be able to capture a ghost and encapsulate it all in one. Weird name, though."

The device had a fishing rod's spool and rod so that the line could be lengthened and shortened easily and at the end of the line was a small metal ball, like a fishing weight.

"Example:" Danny said, before flinging it like a fly rod. Tucker and Sam both dived for cover, but Danny had exceptionally better aim than his father. The line extended across the room before the ball hit the book on his bedside table. As soon as it made contact, it made a low whirring sound, the ball growing in size until it enclosed it. Danny whipped it back, the line retracting until the ball hit the tip. He pushed a button and it revealed the book and shrunk back to it's small size.

Sam stood up from behind the desk, "Looks like it works okay… why is up here and not in their lab?" Tucker popped up from where he was peeking over the bed.

"Dad tried it on a ghost and it didn't work," Danny said gleefully, "Man, it was awesome to see the shock on his face. I mean it sucks when it doesn't work and ghosts are shooting crap at you, but it was priceless."

Sam couldn't help herself at trying to divert this conversation back to his parents' career, not even thinking about how one of his parent's inventions backfiring was what put them in their current situation. "So you've actually fought ghosts before? Head-on?"

Danny shrugged, sitting back down on the bed, Tucker following suit. "I don't know, I mean i guess. If you can call shooting wildly at it, or beating at it while it dangles you ten feet in the air 'fighting'."

"Where do they come from? Do you think there's really a 'Zone' for all ghosts or what?" Tucker asked. There was no malice in it, only open curiosity. Danny, never in his life had he talked to someone else with only genuine interest. Even his own sister, who had been threatened by and shot at ghosts before too, did not want to explore on it. Everything else, but not ghosts. Danny sighed.

"Maybe? I think they have to come from somewhere because when you beat it, it's no longer around. My parents have never caught one. It just disappears and doesn't reform."

"But how do you know you didn't kill it?"

Danny turned to look at Sam and he couldn't tell if he was glaring. She didn't look at him any different. "What?"

"I mean, if it didn't reform, how do you know that it didn't die for good?"

To Tucker's surprise, Danny didn't retort like he'd thought he would. Sam was often pushy enough that people got mad at her, himself not excluded. But Danny just clenched his fist for half a minute before relaxing his fingers and slumping.

"I don't know. Maybe we did. Everything is just theory. Until now I guess."

It took Sam and Tucker a while to figure out what he meant, but Danny looking like he had X-Ray vision through the floor gave it away. They had forgotten, for almost an hour now, that Danny had opened a portal to another dimension, had been _inside_ the portal when it happened.

"I'm sorry, Danny." Sam whispered.

Danny patted the bed beside him on the side Tucker wasn't sitting. They both sat a couple inches away. It didn't last for long as Danny slinged an arm over each of their shoulders and pulled them in.

"Listen closely, okay? We all made our choices down there and each of us have to live with it. But that doesn't mean that you are responsible for my actions, okay? _I_ made the choice to go in there, _I_ pushed the button, _I_ did it to myself okay? Don't be blaming yourselves for that."

They both looked at him skeptically, but he still had that cheeky grin. "I mean, I just have to learn how to hide it from everybody, but especially my parents. That shouldn't be too hard, they're pretty dense. They're geniuses, but so dense."

It was Tucker that had to make the suggestion, knowing that Sam would never think of it. "Are you sure that they can't help?"

It was comical and almost scary how simultaneous and identical looks of bewilderment they gave him. "Seriously? They wouldn't help you?" was all he could say to it. One of the first things Tucker would do would be to tell his parents. They would be supportive and understanding, no matter the accident or how shameful it would be. It was also the absolute opposite reaction Sam's parents would have, and that he understood as well. Even so, he desperately wanted that easy option for Danny; for his parents to care, and at least try to understand.

Danny didn't even hesitate and Tucker could see the gears turning in his friend's brain, but his mind was already made up. "No. If there's one thing I've learned from my childhood, it's that they hate ghosts more than they care for us." He paused there. "Not necessarily hate, but the desire to understand completely. That means that even though I don't feel necessarily broken, they will want to fix me."

It was Sam this time who said what Tucker couldn't. "Danny, you- you did die down there. You weren't breathing, you had no pulse." It was stated as more of a question than a fact. The words hung in the air like a dense fog, shrouding their future and what that might mean for him. He had already sunk through the bathroom floor and gone invisible, not to mention the entire bodily transformation.

"I did."

"You don't think that means that something might be wrong?"

He shrugged and leaned back, slouching and hiding his eyes. "I'm here breathing with you guys, how can that be so bad?"

It took until just after midnight for his friends to fall asleep, but Danny couldn't sleep. He wasn't quite sure he'd ever fall asleep again, knowing that for the nights to come he would see the inside of that portal and the life-changing light that came with it. He just had to remind himself, and keep reminding himself that he wasn't broken. It was odd to miss a state of being- not like an adult wishing to be a kid, or vice-versa- but to actually yearn for time to go backwards to fix an irrevocable mistake. It was two in the morning when he realised that it never would have mattered if Sam had goaded him (and really, it hadn't taken much) into going into the machine because he would have gone eventually. The curiosity of what was wrong with it, why it was so forbidden would have led him there anyways. It was 2:39 when the flash lit up his bedroom, but it wasn't blinding to him. Instead, it was as if he had turned on a pair of night vision goggles in a pitch black forest night, like the pair his Aunt Alicia has. Sam and Tucker had covered their eyes in the bathroom when it switched him back into his… 'human' form, but they didn't stir now.

Danny quickly mouthed those two words, Human Form, and passionately hated them.

He focused on his hands, with his black fingernails that he hadn't noticed before, and pushed himself up on the bed. He gave a small sigh when they didn't sink through the bed, but he did start floating a few inches from the momentum. He was back in his inverted jacket and ripped jeans, and thankfully not naked. A vision from the bathroom, Sam's red face and shocked expression mirrored on Tuckers, and a slightly crazed, _mortified_ giggle came out of his mouth. Tucked didn't move, but Sam stirred lightly. Danny held his breath, which was strangely easy. He held it until three o'clock and she was surely asleep.

Danny floated there for a while; a flash changed him back in the early morning to which they were still none the wiser.

* * *

William Shakespeare once wrote 'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool', and if one were to take that to heart then all the Observants were fools. Shakespeare also wrote 'Villain, I have done thy mother', so everything must have a context to not just be seen as a statement rather than a story. This, in the end, cemented their foolishness into stone.

The Observants, a council of ghosts that all looked and sounded the same, could not see past what they wanted to see even though a giant eyeball for a head was their only defining feature. Despite their omnipotence allowing them to see time in all directions, there was one flaw to their sight that their arrogance had neglected them to accept; time, and especially the future, was in constant motion. It was not just a single, linear path like the Observants would like to so desperately believe (because if it _wasn't_ that would mean they weren't as observant as they professed, and therefore accepting they were not entirely omnipotent). There were many paths, always changing, always adjusting, always (unless one was the Master of Time) incomprehensible. It did not stop them from believing that the one path they saw of the past, present, and future was the _only_ path to ever be.

A room not unlike the roman Colosseum was filled to the brim with everwatching glowing eyeballs wearing high-collared capes which made them look utterly ridiculous, similar to a terrible Halloween decoration one would get at a dollar store and hang from a tree. The centre of the room was left barren, save for the current speaking eyeball who had brought up the terrible tabooed prophecy.

"It has begun. The Door has been opened and the correct boy has died. It is time to start preparing for the downfall of the Human Realm and for the rise of ours."

Eyeballs murmured and mumbled at this, some not all in agreement.

"How do we know it is the correct child? We thought that of the last child and he turned into nothing more than an arrogant pest."

Another voice from the opposite end, "He was not a child by human standards. We should have done well to note that he was past their age of maturity. This child is still in their 'teen years', which is a part of the prophecy."

Another: "Agreed, as well as his core is of the prophecy is as well. We know now the Other is of fire."

More murmurs and mumbles, increasing in agitation. Whatever the prophecy spoken of was about, it was clear to be a source of worry for these ghosts. Not all of them were as excited about the rise of their realm, it seemed.

"We should kill the boy," some spoke, "If he is given the power that is foretold, he could easily destroy us as well as them. He is of no side, that is his nature." Many agreed with this, but before the plotting could begin a loud voice rang out, different from the eyeballs who all sounded the same. This voice was of an old man, but raw with power.

"You shall do no such thing. It must play out as it must."

A blue ghost, beard white as snow and brushing his sash, who's hooded purple garbs were littered with dangling, ticking clocks and other spinning mechanisms made him stand out like a sore thumb. Time seemed to swirl and move around him, mirages of other times and places, while the air had a stagnant feel as if it was untouched by the currents. The murmuring increased in agitation; if the Master of Time was getting involved, as was his nature to only bear witness, this did not bode well for them. The only way the Observants benefitted was if they were all in agreement and this ghost was sure to make them gamble on a specific universe. Observants did not gamble with anything; the slightest hint of a speed bump and they'd rather turn the car right around than ride it through. However, persuasion was a powerful thing. If they began to split their unamity, Clockwork would either get all or none of the vote.

But the Observants had also neither seen Vladimir Masters in another life taunting a Daniel three years younger, even inflicting pain on him, nor had they seen Dark Danny, who didn't exist here, or ever see that fourteen year old Danny defeat his future self fused with Masters. Here, in this world, the Observants hadn't the barest sense of admiration for that, nor the well-masked awe at his defeat of Pariah Dark (but they were still a month away from Samhain, only time would tell what happen).

In the end, that meant the Observants were using plain fear as a motive for their actions. It would be much harder for Clockwork to convince them otherwise on anything. There was only one way to make them feel mildly _safe_ , Clockwork concluded, as his body yielded to its stages of time and reverted him back to a young man, gaining little height and losing the beard, the jagged scar striking over his left eye the only thing to remain through all his forms.

"I, personally, will watch over him."

This quieted the chamber to an eerie silence. There was always chatter, the Observants always throwing out new ideas that they all seemed to simultaneously understand. They were rarely _all_ stunned into silence. It seemed that is just what he did. Clockwork continued irregardless.

"I have beliefs that the outcome of this timeline will be beneficial to all."

He refrained from saying gamble. He had their attention, he might as well keep it. However, the keeper of Master of Time must do well to maintain no bias, or at least not show favour. He was doing both those things. Maybe that is what kept them silent through all of this, to their inevitable exception.

" _I will forfeit my role if it does not plan out as need be."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well there's my take on fabled accident.. hoped y'all liked it. I've probably read it and edited a million times and I'm sort of happy with it, but I feel like it's time to let it go.
> 
> thanks for reading, please comment and kudos if you enjoyed it <3   
> Or hmu on tumblr @aro-gintoki


	8. SIX - CORE (DANNY)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey its me, back after two months. what up
> 
> Sleep Paralysis, Bad Suns:  
>  _"Carve your name in a tree or just run your fingers through wet concrete, yeah_  
>  _Leave a mark, a mark worth leaving,_  
>  _What's self worth, the moment's fleeting?"_
> 
> Warning: anxiety, depression, dissection discussion, idk maddie/jack being neglectful parents? just teenage stuff

That entire first weekend was a massive anxiety disaster. Not only did he have to tiptoe around his entire family, but every time he did an accidental ghostly thing like flickering invisible or phasing through things, Sam and Tucker made the most horrified faces. It was a mix of utter cluelessness and the same scared face they'd had when he'd woken up on the chilled basement floor. It drove him to spend a long time in the bathroom, even after Sam and Tucker finally left. He spent it mostly staring in the mirror debating every choice he'd ever made in his entire life. Everything that had come up to this entire moment, from choosing to follow those kids out into the school field that day in Second Grade, to accepting to showing Sam and Tucker those blueprints, and everything in between that was utterly pointless. He'd pushed the button, he'd killed _himself._ At that point, he'd leave the bathroom and probably come back in an hour and do it again.

The trio had been fortunate the accident had happened on a Friday night; that and Saturday mornings were both "date nights" where his parents routinely went out for dinner and breakfast. The majority of the rest of the week was spent down in the basement, tinkering with other things and working up the nerve to delve into their prizewinner again. It took them more than half the day for them to realise it was functioning well on it's own. Not only were they none the wiser to his friends being in the house at all, but he had managed to maintain that he'd never been down there and his cold had driven him right to his room. Though the sickness he felt from the lying was true enough, it didn't stop him from going back down in the basement and making sure all the cameras in the house had glitched out during that time. It sort of helped that the surge of power from the portal coming on glitched everything out for about ten minutes. He just deleted the time they were there and extended the empty house. Plus, if he stared at the hole in the wall with that mysterious substance swirling for an abnormal amount of time, nobody would ever know. He deleted that too.

With the realisation that their portal was working, his parents disappeared almost completely. Mom and Dad wouldn't come out until the late mornings, well after he'd go to school, and then sleep until before dinner. Sometimes there'd be dinner in the oven or crockpot, but Danny suspected it was Jazz who did that mostly. They'd both be back in the basement by the time he got back from school with a "Sorry Honey, working again!" note magnetted to the fridge that entire first week after the portal incident. It would prove to be like that for most of the weeks to come.

That first week, though. What a nightmare.

He was a walking ball of anxiety, thoughts of horrifyingly embarrassing scenarios running through his head. Being in a movie theatre with Valerie, his first attempt at slipping an arm around her shoulders phasing right through her. The teacher picks him to answer a question on the board and he goes invisible halfway to the front. Sinking through his chair and desk right into the ground below. He had Sunday to prepare at least. The most important thing he learned was if he focused on the area of his body that was in contact with anything, he would seldom sink through it. That didn't stop the random burst of invisibility where his legs would disappear, or other random parts (his whole head once, that was a trip in front of the mirror). It was lucky he'd been alone because the first couple of days were a mess of slip-ups. That only made it worse going back into the public eye, not knowing if/ _when_ it was going to happen again.

Good news bad news, he got to lunch without any incident, but he was so busy focusing on his entire body he didn't hear any of his teachers.

"Hey Danny, how's it going man?" Tucker's voice was usually a soothing thing, but the question seemed so redundant with his anxiety so high.

"You mean hows it going with making sure I'm not going to start sinking or blinking in and out of existence like a human lightbulb, or _actually_ turning into a not-human lightbulb-"

"Okay, I get it, yeesh!" Tucker said, looking mock offended. Danny was lucky he was used to Sam's moods- otherwise he would have gone running or been actually offended.

"Sorry, Tucker. Nothing's happened, but I keep feeling that something _might._ It's an awful feeling. And I miss my jacket," he said, picking at the red flannel overshirt. No one would ever have to know it was really his sister's shirt. All the secrets he was keeping.

"I hear you man," he said, patting him on the back.

They made it to their outside table, Sam already there with her purple patterned jacket and large brimmed hat, snacking on her absurdly large salad. When they got there, she wanted to know everything that he'd learned over the weekend.

"Well, I can't figure out how to transform back into my ghost form," they both flinched at this, unbeknownst to him who had already decompartmentalized how bad it sounded because it's his _life_ now, "but as long as I focus hard enough I can stop most things. It's harder to engage it, but it should make it easier to hide."

Sam leaned forward, chin on her hand. He loved that her nails were so short and small, but he could still make out the tiniest details of ghosts in the polish. Well, not a sentient ghost- his parents called them "non-sentient ecto-blobs" which frankly deserved a better name. Why is she snapping her fingers now? "-Earth to Danny? What kind of things can you do so far?"

"Basic ghost stuff; invisibility, intangibility, floating. Kinda cool stuff. Along with that I've been gifted with super senses." His voice got so dry at the end, the words could have been blown into the wind.

Tucker could only stare wide eyed over his glasses, a horrified look on his face, understanding the full implications of what that could mean. "Oh no."

"Oh yes. Oh yes, Tucker. Possibly the worst weekend ever until I learned how to shut it off. I heard my parents kissing downstairs like they were right next to my face. I heard my Dad take a shit _so fucking loud-"_

"OKAY, GROSS!" Sam yelled, shoving his shoulder. Normally she wasn't squeamish, but that was a new low. The mental image was scarring enough. Desperate to change the conversation she asked the next question that popped into her head. "How did you learn to shut it off?"

"It's like pinching your nose, but in your brain. Can't really explain it. Sometimes it switches back on its own, but I find it's only when it means something."

Sam wanted to jump on that too (what kind of things, when did it happen, how did you know it was important?), but Sam could tell that he was just as clueless about the reasoning as she was. She already knew that Danny would begin to get frustrated if one kept dangling something he didn't know in front of his face, so she moved on, but she made a note to ask more later.

"What else can you do? How will you know your limits until you try being more ghostly?"

Danny shrugged, slouching further away by the uncomfortable idea, "It doesn't feel right to try possession or anything like that. And I've seen ghosts shoot ectoplasm blasts before, but it feels pointless to try unless I figure out the transformation. As long as I figure that out, I'll be able to change _back_ and then we can work the rest out _._ "

Tucker was all dutifully noting all this down in his PDA, in a secret code in an encrypted file. He was doing this with pretty much _all_ information, including his embarrassing observations from The Bathroom Incident. There was a reason the shit was encrypted, okay? He was proud of Danny for taking it so well (he'd been short and grumpy since, but paranoia could do a lot worse than that); Tucker was sure if it was him in that situation he would still be in bed, hoping the world would just drift around him until it disappeared. That being said, both Sam and Danny were already conditioned to weird shit (one by choice to distance from family, another because of family). Still, Tucker wanted to do everything he could to help Danny get his life back to his normal, as normal as he could be now being half-dead.

"I guess we'll just have to try and figure out how to help you do it, huh? Challenge accepted." He ignored their eyerolls, but knew they were both in it anyways. Friends were good shit.

* * *

There was another, more efficient teacher on the cusp of learning some very useful information. This information was neither malevolent or benevolent in nature, it was just something new where there was nothing before. There was a portal on the far - bottom - left - under area of the Zone that wasn't there before, one that didn't seem to lead anywhere else in the Zone. She knew this just from the feel of the energy emitting from the large rip-hole (almost six of Her's, and she was very large) - it was undeniably alive and _fresh._ Nothing that leads to the past. This was the most excitement she'd had in a long time, and it seemed she was the first ghost to notice this. However, delving straight into a new portal could be a whole whop of a mess. Worse than a chili pot exploding; it could scramble an essence or teleport one into a trapped dimension. The best thing one could do in a situation like this would be to get some ecto-essence with no sentience and throw it in there. Some of the others wouldn't bother with the non-sentient part, but Lunch Lady wasn't fond of hurting things _if_ it didn't deserve it. If it doesn't explode, it narrows it down to one. That one required patience and constant vigilance. Eventually, Ms. Cafeteria Lady would find that indeed, it does not scramble essences as the random ecto-pusses (ecto-pi?) she'd thrown in there didn't disintegrate. A short time after that she found that the voices on the other side, presumably a man and a woman, stopped at the same time in a frequent matter. Time wasn't really a thing at all in the Ghost Zone, but one learned to recognize the drifting of debris once holding meaning and other floating minerals. Every area of the Zone had a different rotation, but She was perceptive. She'd been watching for seven days in current time, and today seemed to be the day she would try going through. The voices were fading through the green swirling mass of their portal as Maddie and Jack Fenton head upstairs for bed at nearly nine in the morning.

* * *

Wednesday and Thursday were a little shocking to say the least. Danny was trying to fall asleep after so many days of constant anxiety; he was _finally_ on that cusp of unconsciousness, Danny could feel it like a warm blanket sliding up his body, up and up towards his head-

"Jack, look, the portal-!" his mother's voice yelled, right beside his face like an air horn jolted him out of bed with a shocked gasp of biting cold air, and a screamed "FUCK!"

(Jazz, the room over still studying at 2:34AM, gave the wall an exasperated look and elected to ignore it for the sake of her education.)

Danny couldn't believe it, he was just about to sleep and all of sudden his hearing had been auto-tuned in to his parents in the basement. They were making weird gasping hiccuping sounds, and he realised they were crying. Danny didn't understand why his ghost powers had grabbed onto this and was about to switch it off when his dad's soft voice-

"It _is_ a ghost."

"A non-sentient ecto-blob, dear."

A cold drop of sweat dripped down his spine in fear. Danny couldn't believe it, if he was hearing this right. A ghost came through? The portal?

"A ghost came through our portal, Mads…"

"I know, Jack, let's get to work."

Her tone was excited. They seldom talked after that, into their routine already of analyzing the thing that came through. Only to ask for a tool, or announce a reading.

Danny sat there- and would continue to sit there until morning-, rubbed his face with his hand like in a dream, before covering his mouth with his hand, breathing in once before ceasing to breathe for the night.

"Fuck…."

(Another one came through the next night. He got the same cold breath that shocked him head to toe. He prayed _Put a lock on it, please put a lock on it, a door, something.)_

Friday didn't feel any different for Danny; he still was running on fruitless hours of sleep that seemed to drain him more than refuel him. He had sat for most of the night before trying to change forms, but only managed once and he couldn't figure out how to change back. When, eventually, his body reverted for him, he noticed something he'd never noticed before. There was a chill that not only accompanied the rings of light that traveled up and down his body, but there was a cool tingling in his skull between his eyes. Not believing he'd never felt that before, Danny spent over an hour focusing on that spot behind the bridge of his nose with no results. Eventually, he admitted that he was finally crazy and attempted to get some sleep.

When he arrived at school in the morning, already irritable and dragging his feet from exhaustion, he was greeted with the lovely sight of a very large double-sided protest. There was all sorts of yelling that was endorsed by Casper High, judging by the goady logo on cheap megaphones carried by every person with half a brain. Danny couldn't understand it, public school; half the time the school was telling them to be quiet, be seen and not heard. Like telling teenagers not to do something was ever a good idea, but maybe they knew that, and _that's_ why they supported educational protests on school grounds?

What was so educational about eating a straight-meat diet vs. straight veganism argument, Danny didn't know or really care. He was just grateful people were so busy arguing about the stupid thing or laughing about it, they were paying less attention to him. He kept his shoulders shrunk down and tried to go around the crowd unnoticed. He got halfway around the horde to the front doors before his super-hearing unwillingly locked onto Dash and his buddy Kwan near the bike racks. "Looks like loser Foley and Manson are at it again!"

A flashback took him back to the beginning of the week, a light argument he had zoned out due to his prioritising of importance (focusing on his new ghost powers versus a debate over diet held no contest on Monday). Sam and Tucker both getting increasingly heated over stupid topics were something he learned about them quite early on, but this protest had taken it to a new tier. It wasn't stupid or trivial anymore; this was _organized._ He was already conditioned to it; his parents debated about stupid shit all the time (the Santa thing had destroyed his childhood), but there was two negative things to being the third party. Him, being an outcast would draw more attention to himself and worse, they would expect him to pick a side.

_Oh shit._

Danny spent most of his classes sketching designs for a portal door and drawing electrical schematics that he _hoped_ would spread out enough that it could be powered by the excess energy from the portal. That way, even if there was a black out or something, the door could still be powered and functioning. It was in his second class, head bent over his drawings with an arm protectively curled around it that a blast of his cool breath chilling his face caused him to shoot up. The teacher stopped talking at his jump and raised an eyebrow. Of course it was Mr. Lancer, the only one who would bring attention to something pointless like that. "Something to add, Mr. Fenton?"

"Uh, no sir, may I go to the bathroom?"

"Yes, could you leave your bag- Oh, Dorian Gray!"

(Danny was out the door by "leave").

He spent the rest of the period until lunch in the bathroom, head between his knees and trying not to panic. Sure, if his ghost sense (that's what he was calling the breath mist he couldn't _stop)_ went off at every little ecto-blob that came through the portal, he shouldn't be freaking out. But, at nine AM his parents were most definitely asleep and whether they put an alarm on the portal was a shot in the dark. Most likely they did, but they also did put an ON/OFF switch inside their portal that they left out of all the blueprints and forgot about. Danny was going to be sick, anxiety swirling in his gut. The bell for lunch made him jump another foot off the toilet and he floated there until he could coax his body to remember gravity. He rushed to find Sam and Tucker, who were already beneath their tree outside.

"Jeez, you look like you've seen a ghost!" Tucker laughed, Sam punching his arm for Danny. Danny couldn't help it, he gave out a light punch in the same spot. He was too close to the mark for Danny's liking. Tucker yelped and rubbed his arm with fervor. Okay, maybe it wasn't that light. "Sorry, Tuck."

Danny sighed before slumping down onto the table once he took a seat. "Sooo I've got this "new" ghost ability where I breath this cold mist and it lets me know when another ghost is nearby."

Sam immediately punched his arm too, "Ow!"

"What do you mean " _new"_? Why are you saying it like that? _Neeeew?_ How long have you known about it?"

"Uh, one or two days?"

She punched him again, "Two! Jeez, they were non-sentient ecto-blobs! But it just happened again, and I have no idea!"

Sam and Tucker looked at eachother then at Danny, "Should we ditch?"

He stared up at them through his bangs, effectively pulling off the sad puppy look. "What if it's just an ecto-blob? Or did my parents intercept it? How do we explain why were there? Or if it's already floating around town? Or-"

" _Or_ we just get out of here and go for a walk and chill?" Tucker interjected, "I'm kinda feeling a Nasty and you look like you need a milkshake."

Danny's uncontrollable laughter was answer enough.

Tucker ate his food from his greasy brown paper bag despite both their protests, but as soon as Danny mentioned the park near his house he stuffed it all back in and dragged them outside. Sam looked at him in bewilderment at first, but then kept poking him and giving him a knowing smile the whole walk there. It made Danny forget the whole reason he was freaking out in the first place for. The park was so big, and on the cusp of the city. It borderlined natural pastures and woodland, which made it a good escape from the city life, and more importantly prying eyes. They followed a distinct animal path into the woods, then took a left of the track until they found an empty clearing. Danny always kept a compass in his pockets (and an odd assortment of other weird crap he probably didn't need), so he wasn't worried about getting lost. Tucker finished Danny's milkshake as he focused on his powers, eyes closed.

"OK, now!" he said, opening them sharply. They flashed a bright neon green for only a moment before fading back to blue. Other than that, nothing.

He sighed and slumped onto the log that they were sitting on. "Man, I totally thought I had something with that brain-freeze thing."

Sam tapped her chin, "Well, what do you know about ghost biology? Maybe it's more of a body thing than a spiritual thing."

"What, like I push my belly-button and change into a dead guy?"

She slapped his arm, "No, like maybe you're thinking too much with your human brain and not enough with the other one."

"I thought we weren't supposed to think with that one," Tucker chimes in.

"Not helpful over there. I mean your ghost brain."

"Ghosts don't have brains. Not until me, I guess. We've used X-Ray equipment on them, they don't even have bones."

"Well, that's not kinda fucked."

"That's why my parents don't believe they're sentient beings. They see them as highly intelligent jelly-fish, which is just so dumb I dont know where to start. Contradicting, for one, but you can't really convince them otherwise that ghosts aren't just a mass of high-functioning energy around a powerful source."

Tucker leaned forward at this, eyebrows furrowed. "But what's the energy source?"

Danny shrugged, "Their soul? I don't know. Hypothesis is that not all ghosts were once human. The ecto-blobs are just congealed excess ectoplasm, created by the emission from other ghosts. Their ecto-blasts or whatever other powers. The other ones, with cores, used to be human and this is what differs them, really. They don't know what the core is, they've never caught one and been able to find out."

They were all quiet for a minute before Sam spoke up, "Is that why you won't tell them?"

Danny gave a bitter laugh, "What? Me, afraid of being dissected by my own parents, in which scenarios include them not even knowing or believing it's me? No."

His sarcastic drawl would have earned him a bump from one of them if he didn't lean forward and bury his head in his hands.

"Hey man, it won't go that way," Tucker said.

"Who knows what would happen? They dissect everything they get, I've been _listening_ to it."

"We'll tell them what happened if it ever comes to that. Now c'mon, what about this core thing? Where is it?"

Danny leaned back blowing a big breath, exasperated, "I don't know, they seem to have concentrated radiation in their centre, it's what powers the ectoplasm and-" He had unknowingly touched his sternum with his hand, and as soon as he started picturing a glowing orb-shaped powerhub in his chest he could almost feel it. A chill took over his body, two rings phasing over him in either direction as he changed into the ghost he saw all those nights ago in a dream. Sam and Tucker already knew well enough to avert and close their eyes as soon as they recognized the hair-standing pull of Danny's powers.

"Oh, well that seems to be something." Danny said, casually floating about two inches off the log.

"Danny, you did it! Can you change back again?"

He pictured it again, his core which was becoming more and more apparent as a full chill next to his sluggishly beating heart. It was becoming as prevalent as the fact that he may have had half of the regular BPM, impossible to ignore when it's thudding in his ears. The chill flared and he transformed again.

Danny had the biggest grin on his face as he looked at them both, excited and proud that they'd finally figured it out. "You guys did it, oh my god, _cores of course-"_

His smile only got bigger as a laugh bubbled up his throat as they both tackled him to the ground in a hug.


	9. SEVEN - MEATLADY (DANNY)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS** : fighting (finally!), underage drinking (danny is 17 almost 18, which is legal in some provinces in Canada, so), self-deprecation, anxiety, brief vomitting, mentions of child neglect, swearing, also meatlady i hate her
> 
>  **A/N** : hello its me again after so long with the longest chapter yet. i'm sorry it took forever, but i HATED writing this with a passion but its needed to move the story along. i was very tempted to kill her off by the end so i never ever have to write her again.
> 
>  _"I wanna stay inside all day_  
>  _I want the world to go away_  
>  _I want blood, guts, and chocolate cake_  
>  _I wanna be a real fake"_  
>  Marina, Teen Idle

It was with such a genuine smile on his face that Danny realised he hadn't been this happy, and had this much fun, in a long, long time. Possibly Ever. It was nearing dusk in the woods, an internal ticking counting down for when it would have to end, the trio just laughing and meandering. Since ditching their classes, Danny felt a sense of peace. He stayed in his ghost form the whole time, trying to fly around them, turning his invisibility on and off and appearing randomly behind trees, or them. He even managed to transfer his powers to them, if he touched them and concentrated hard enough sweat began to drip off his chin. It was still a win in his books; he lifted Tucker a foot off the ground, turned Sam invisible, and managed to turn both of them intangible the whole walk back to the park when he realised their 'human' eyes couldn't pick up the deadfall like he could. It was almost like wearing night vision goggles, but without the jarring blindness of daylight and nighttime; his eyes automatically adjusted to the light setting perfectly. He wondered how it would work in a thick snowfall, underwater, or through fog. It was kind of freaky once he started thinking about it too much.

Danny walked both Tucker and Sam home, considering he could just go invisible and fly home now that he'd figured out the transformation and they were all surprised by the slight drifting of the tiniest of snowflakes. It was too warm for anything to stick, but at least it was pretty. He figured if ghosts were going to keep coming through the portal, which is why they ditched classes in the first place, he might as well get used to flying around. In a way it was his fault there was even a door connecting dimensions and he should at least make sure they weren't wreaking havoc in the city. Danny wasn't sure yet what he would do if they were, but he'd have to figure it out. He would probably have to fight them, he'd met more ghosts prone to violence than not, but what would he do with them after, _if_ he didn't get his ass handed to him?

T'was the magic question.

Saturday morning, Danny begrudgingly peeled his eyelids apart at the sound of his alarm he apparently didn't shut off. He slapped at it, hitting it on the corner and sending it flying across the room, plug included. As a gift from his annoying sister, it had a blackout backup, so it just kept blaring its annoying frantic beeping, getting increasingly louder and louder. Something in him snapped.

Danny was up and standing over the alarm faster than he could blink, in between heartbeats even. He couldn't comprehend how he'd moved so fast, even just in his 'human' form, nor did he even have time to think of the consequences of his rising bare foot. His anger was driving it and with the force of something no teenage boy should be able to execute, he drove it home on the alarm. With a satisfying crack, the thing exploded into pieces and his foot went through the hardwood floor. With a not-so satisfying crack.

Danny stared at it and would have started hysterically laughing or crying, but he didn't want to make any more noise. Jazz would already be downstairs, Thank the World, he didn't go all the way down to the ceiling of the first floor, though telling by the plaster brushing his bare toes, he was close. Danny winced when he pulled out his foot, and judging by the scabbing already covering his fresh cuts, it was more on instinct than feeling real pain. Plus the hole in the floor wasn't anything to scoff at, it was a decent pit trap right in front of his bedroom door. It's like he turned into a monster overnight or something, ha-ha. On the bright side, it was comforting to know that super-healing was on his No-Show and Tell list. Not so comforting to know that he would have to learn how to hide that too. If anybody ever witnessed him injure himself, how on Earth would he explain that? The alarm clock was another story. It was a Saturday and he didn't really have an excuse to not clean it up other than he didn't want to look at it. Jazz would be mad if she found out he broke it, so he'd have to throw it out when she wasn't around.

Danny sighed and resigned himself to having a terrible morning, but at least he could go chug some coffee and annoy Jazz. He made his way downstairs and into the kitchen to the sound of her puttering around. He hadn't seen her much since moving in, only in the mornings when he was incoherent and she had way too much to say for somebody who also never slept.

"Good morning, little brother!" Jazz cheerfully called, her loud voice buzzing his ears. He refrained from clapping his hands over his ears, instead just waving her off. His ghost senses are always touchy when he first wakes up, but he still finds her constant optimism, well, annoying. When he'd have too much of it, he wakes up before her and does it to her instead. It's childish, but so worth it to see her obsessive-planning-schedule thing go wack. He can physically see her rearranging her entire day on her face just because he started eating breakfast before her. It makes him feel more in control of his own, derailing life.

"Yeah, g'mornin, whatever," he mumbled back, shuffling around her to grab a mug from the cupboard and fill it with the dark roast that was more like battery acid. His dad kept ectoplasm in the fridge, so in his reality it was an improvement over whatever was in there. He took a sip and leaned against the counter, eyeing her swishing red hair out of the corner of his eye. He had words to say, but they hadn't arranged themselves yet. She hummed while she buttered her toast, wiping the counter of her crumbs, and taking her place at the seat facing the kitchen window. In the two weeks (that was it?) that they'd moved here, she was already predictable to the point of obsessive. Their family was cursed with that gene; he was the same way with things he had an interest in, but he was grateful he couldn't be read like an open book. Skimmed maybe, but he didn't think he was obvious with his psychosis. Years and years of trying to be normal hid most of it. That wasn't really what he was worried about.

"Have you seen 'em lately?", he asked around his slurps of coffee, trying to keep his voice low incase he summoned them.

Jazz took a crunch of her toast, wiping both sides of her mouth with a napkin when she was done chewing. He was expecting a very scientific answer, with the exact date and time down to the millisecond, but all he got was a "Nope," with her popping the P like somebody else who was already adapted to never seeing their parents. It'd be sad if they weren't almost adults who'd spent their childhood this way. Even living in a RV together for almost ten years, they still managed to be distant in their studies and in teaching them. It was always about ghosts; never to do with what they might have been interested in. In the end, there was almost a chasm between the Fenton's and their kids; you could call to each other, hear one another just fine, but they weren't close. They would never be close. At least, that was something that unified Jazz and Danny. They had to look out for each other. He sighed, "I think I have some cash left over from milk last week, want me to get groceries?"

"I'll write you a list. I have some stuff for a slow cooker, but all the organics in the fridge have begun to mutate."

A deeper sigh, "I'll throw 'em out."

After half an hour of trying to pry semi-coherrent ectoplasm fused vegetables and some poor, poor bacon out of the fridge, Danny scowled at the eyes blinking out of the carrots and said "Fuck it."

There were no cameras inside the fridge, and the closest one was facing the basement door so Danny tried to initiate core experiment numero uno. He'd been able to change forms now lickity split, and half of last night was him transforming at different, controlled speed rates. He'd also noticed, as this morning's destruction was a great example, that even though he was more physically human at the moment, his powers still bled over into this form. He'd already known this with his improved hearing, sight, and smell, he just didn't know to what extent. Danny threw the unhelpful spatula into the sink and pulled off the almost armpit high gloves ("These are the proper P.P.E for fridge cleaning, honey!") before focusing on his hand. His heart was beating, the sluggish tattoo calming him, and he could feel the chill of his core next to it pulsating. _You're my body,_ he thought, _You know what I want._ A silver shimmer went down his arm, not unlike the glow that engulfed his body when he goes through the full transformation, just not as intense. Almost like a chameleon changing color, his black-longsleeved shirt-sleeves molded into white, staticky leather. It blurred the edges of reality where the air around it moved, and Danny was almost panting at the focus it took to keep it from changing back. He moved his fingers, his black nails jarring against his bloodless white fingers, and it was almost as freaky as having your arm be a different temperature than your shoulder. He was sweating almost alarmingly, his flannel shirt sticking uncomfortably to his back, but he couldn't help but grin at the vegetables who were now eyeing him with panic.

"Oh, you thought you were the only one to be genetically modified with ghost goo in this house, huh? Thought wrong, son." He said as he grabbed at it. Danny's hand moved lightning quick, definitely faster than his human hand would have been able to perform. He might have laughed a little crazily when the vegetables went intangible, but his hand caught them anyways. He started stuffing them into the garbage bag while humming a marching tune, pleased he was finally making progress. That was probably why he didn't hear them come trudging up the stairs.

"Danny, sweetie, what are you doing?"

Before the first syllable left his mother's mouth, his arm phased back to normal, the pack of bacon, the only survivor left, slipped through his fingers and to the back of the fridge. He was frozen to the spot, and he almost went invisible from the sheer panic of not wanting to be seen by them. He slowly turned his head, looking at his parents who looked dead on their feet. Danny counted his lucky stars that their brains were probably working at max half capability after working down there for more than twelve hours.

"Just… cleaning out the fridge."

"Your eyes are glowing, honey," she said, almost, _almost_ analyzingley.

"Oh, I drank some ectoplasmic milk by accident, I'm sure it'll go away. I didn't drink much."

They stared at him both for a moment too long- Danny thought he was busted. What the fuck was he thinking, transforming inside the house with parents that dissected ghosts for breakfast? Was he actually losing his mind that he didn't recognize the danger he was putting himself in? His gut turned, sour and hollow, filled with nothing but acid coffee.

Then, "Okay, that's nothing we haven't done before. Just be careful next time, Danny, and let me know if it lasts longer than today, okay?" He nodded and with that they were gone. He stood frozen in place until he heard them close their bedroom door upstairs and he launched for the sink, bile spilling out of his mouth barely before he reached the basin. Turning on the faucet to rinse his mouth out, he realised his hand was shaking. That call was closer than he would have ever liked it to be. That couldn't ever happen again.

There was no doubt in his mind; if he was caught by his parents, there was no way he would be able to convince them he was their son, and not possessed by something that came through that door in the basement.

After that series of unfortunate events that seemed to be his Saturday morning, Danny proceeded to go to the grocery store for his sister. She tried explaining the thesis she was writing for her course, but he got out of the conversation as soon as she started asking him questions. Danny loved his sister, though he would seldom say it, and one of those reasons included the constant feeling of her psychoanalyzing him. They'd have multiple fights that started with him telling her to find her own test subject, and the best thing he'd learned from those was to walk away before it began. Jazz couldn't help but look for ways to fix other people, but in his opinion he thought she should learn to know when to mind her own business. Fuming while he walked under his breath, he almost jumped a foot in the air when his chest started vibrating.

"Jesus Fuck, am I on edge." He whispered, pulling his flip phone out of his chest pocket. Finding his pack and lighter in the same pocket, he lit one and began to walk. Flipping the phone open, he scanned his messages. With a shock at his forgetfulness, he realised it was from Valerie, whom he hadn't talked to other than quickly in hallways between classes since their date. He'd totally forgotten the ghost dog they had seen, which had seemed to have gotten lost in his brain after their makeout session. If he thought about her too long, he could feel the ghost of her soft lips on his. But since the Thing That Had Happened In The Basement and then That, he had been feeling guilty on multiple accounts. Despite their history or maybe because of it, he still hadn't told Sam and Tucker about it. Then there was the obvious incident of where he had died and become some kind of half-paranormal creature; how the heck do you explain that to your barely-girlfriend?

_hey danny, sorry got lost in the roach suit again… how are you?_

A bitter smile came across his face as he read it again, dragging on his smoke and dodging a pole. How does he respond to that without lying? If he was never going to tell her what he was, how did he deserve to keep dating her? The worst thing about it, how did he make it seem like he wasn't dumping her because she wanted to go down on him? 'Cause it definitely wasn't that; he'd have done it if she'd asked. Possibly even offered, if he got the nerve. Valerie was witty, funny, she could throw him over her shoulder despite being almost a foot smaller, she didn't give a shit about what other people thought. He liked everything about her, really. There was just the animosity between her and his best friends, and the giant secret between them.

_I'm good, just trying to catch up on all this homework. Can I call you tonight?_

His phone buzzed almost right away, _ya on smoke break. done at 5_

Well, he had until then to come up with something.

Danny bought all the ingredients at the store and was lounging on a couch in the furniture section of some random department store when he heard a familiar sigh. A loud, grumbling sigh that he heard every weekday for the last two weeks. There was Sam, with her black hair pinned up in a half ponytail being dragged by a blonde woman impeccably clothed in a dress and fur coat. The look of utter hate on Sam's face kept him from calling out, but when she caught his eye he waved.

"Lemme go, Mom, I want to go look at the rugs."

"Okay sweetheart, meet me at the front."

When Sam turned away she made gagging faces and Danny couldn't help but laugh.

"What are you doing here?" Sam asked.

"Eyeing the rugs to hide the hole I stomped through my floor this morning. What about you? This doesn't seem like your scene."

"Okay, you are not distracting me from that. Care to elaborate, my freakishly tall and now strong friend?"

"Hey, I was always strong! Just not strong enough to, uh, stomp my alarm clock almost to the first floor."

"Dude!"

"That's Tucker's line."

"Well, somebody has to do it!"

"I was just gonna cover it up with a sheet of plywood then a thick rug. These are just like, seventy dollars more than I have. I didn't think they'd be this expensive."

Sam looked at him, and not for the first time, he had trouble gauging her expression. There was no judgment, no horror, nothing other than maybe wry amusement. Perhaps like she might be thinking of ways this could be possible blackmail. What for, he didn't want to do anything to find out.

"I'll get it for you, but you gotta tell me what's going on."

Danny eyed her. Apparently it was too late to be worrying about what for, 'cause it was too late. He wasn't even sure what the heck she was talking about. She sighed at his expression, clearly getting it.

"You and Valerie."

"Oh, that. I know you don't like her, but-"

"C'mon Danny, we're friends. I've known her a long time, but… people change I guess, and I can put aside my dislike of her for you."

"And Tucker?"

"You noticed that, huh?"

Danny scoffed, flicking through a few rugs just to hear the satisfying clink of the hangers. "You mean the way he deflects every time she comes up in conversation or the way he literally gravitates towards her when she enters a room? Kinda noticeable."

"He's… liked her for a while. He didn't want to say anything."

"He didn't have to," Danny muttered, refraining from saying 'he won't have to worry about it anymore'. He flicked through a few more before stopping on a blue and gray one.

Same picked it out, "This one is you. With the funky patterns." She looked at him, her purple eyes earnest and almost apologetic, "Tucker and I have talked about it. We don't care, Danny. We just don't want you to feel like you have to hide stuff from us."

Danny looked at her and just stared. He wasn't ready to talk about having to potentially dump Val, which was starting to look like the easiest option. The better option, for Valerie. He decided to confess the stuff that had settled in.

"Nothing really, guess her Dad got attacked by a big ghost dog and got fired and then it charged us when I was walking her home. We kissed a bit, but nothing else."

"What!"

"The kissing?"

"No, the dog, you numbskull! Did you attack it infront of her?"

"Now who's the numbskull? Of course not! I just shot my Fenton Lipstick at it."

"I am going to forget how that sounds and ask you to elaborate."

He scoffed, "God, are you Tucker incarnate today? No, my mom makes these self-defense things for ghosts and makes them look like cosmetics so she can smuggle them into conventions. They're technically weapons though the blasts pass through most live-organic material." He pulled one out of his pocket and showed her. She was looking at it with glee, almost like "disguised weapon" was the best thing she'd heard all day. "Want it?"

"Hell yes!" She practically snatched it out of his hand and was smiling a little crazily, "Oh man, I can't wait to test this out!"

"Should I be worried?"

"Probably."

He got home, dropped the groceries off in the now sanitized fridge, and went out to the garage. He found a conveniently sized piece of plywood in there that he noted when he was cleaning his room out of ghost weapon junk. Danny bee-lined it to his bedroom once he had it. The cleanup of the alarm clock, which was still smashed all over his room, gave him time to think. Once he connected his core to being his "ghost heart", everything seemed to click. He still struggled during times of anxiety, or the time he stole half the bottle of vodka in his parent's freezer and filled the rest up with water (his hand went intangible and he almost dropped the bottle), and he would do ghostly things that he couldn't control. Mostly now, he found with little concentration he could begin to tether it back in. Much like earlier when his arm was in the fridge, his fear- more accurately, his instinct- had turned his arm back before he could think about it. Danny felt much better now that he could go to school and not worry about slipping through the desk. The only thing lacking was his stamina. It didn't mean his insomnia was any better but, in the end, it was an improvement. Once all the pieces were swept up and thrown away, he unrolled the rug and something fell out from the centre and dropped on the floor in a whump.

Danny bent over and picked the journal up off the floor. It was black and leatherbound, with golden stars pressed into it in an array. He opened it up and inside was Sam's neat, looping scrawl: _For your scientific discoveries (y'know, for ALL of them) -Sam_

A grin stretched over his face and he threw it on the bed. He placed the rug inconspicuously in front of his door, ensuring the hole was placed in the middle, so even if the edges got kicked up it wouldn't show the plywood. The rug was the perfect thickness you couldn't even notice the raised height compared to the rest of the floor. Sighing, deeming it a job well done, he went and grabbed the bottle of water that wasn't really water that was on his desk and locked his door. His parents had already trudged their way downstairs, probably to eat whatever Jazz cooked up and went straight down to the basement. That incident from this morning still made him sick to his stomach.

He wanted to forget that it ever happened.

If there was one positive thing to being alone and also an insomniac it also meant that it gave him time to learn some things about his ghost form, other than his now permanent black nails which he noticed in the fridge. Danny crawled on his bed and crossed his legs before the ghostly light engulfed the room without a sound other than his slowed breathing. He still couldn't get over how much his ghostly form affected his surroundings. Just like when that ghost dog showed up, everything in the vicinity looked different. His dark blue walls turned a vicious purple and everything darker turned into endless shadows. His unearthly glow reflected off of every picture frame, every screen and made it seem like he was in a horror video game. Anywhere he looked, his green glowing eyes reflected back ay him. Holding the water bottle he had poured the vodka into in his hand and a debate in his head. It wasn't so much of "Oh you're a thief and should put it back", he was long past guilt hiding his guilty pleasures, smoking included. The debate was more 'Do I waste perfectly good liquor on a body that might not even process it?'. Danny hadn't tried drinking the liquor he lifted since the Basement Thing. He tried smoking already but stopped when he accidently went intangible and the smoke drifted through him.

"Ah, fuck it." He lifted the bottle to his lips and chugged a couple mouthfuls before shuddering and gagging, still not used to the burn. He put the cap back on, and tried to focus on what he wanted to do this for in the first place. All sentient ghosts with cores had fundamental powers, but what he didn't understand was why some ghosts powers were elemental based. Danny had tried controlling water like that ghost mummy had done a few years ago, but other than just phasing through it, nothing. He did stick his head underwater in the tub for as long as he could until he breathed in, expecting water, and was pleasantly surprised to find he could all along. When he passed his ghostly hand over his lighter like he usually does for fun, he found on the first pass that it _burns_ , the pain throbbing deep, completely unlike the warmth he feels with his human hand. _Avoid the heat,_ his gut told him. Over the years travelling with his parents he had witnessed ghosts controlling plants, fire, water, a tornado one time. Did he have an element power as well? How did he unlock it, if he even had one? There was nothing elemental about his transformation; the spikes in his leather jacket were now bone spikes that moved effortlessly with his body. He could control their length, even the ones that ran down the back of his forearms. Once he realised the bones poking out under his skin, he only stopped panicking by comparing it to a pufferfish. He laughed, and it grounded him, literally. He didn't realise his head was almost brushing the ceiling the more anxious he got. There was no point worrying about it; just learning to live with it. The spikes didn't have any feeling, and neither did the skin around them. The ones closer to his neck moved independently when he raised and lowered his arms so they wouldn't poke him. Slapping at one, it disappeared under his palm like whack-a-mole. He did indeed look like a glowing, white porcupine. Danny snorted at the mental picture, realising with the heat in his gut that the liquor was working.

His phone vibrated on his bedside table, and with an instant rush the buzz left him. Danny sighed, realising it was useless to consume any more in this form unless he wanted to waste it. He'd taken a decent swaller of vodka, enough to usually leaving him with loose inhibitions and dozing off for at least an hour. Floating back down to the bed, he transformed back into his other form and reached over for his phone. Settling down into the pillows and flipping it open, he saw it was from Val.

' _home.'_

He quickly wrote back, his thumb a flurry on the numeric pad. It was a wonder the buttons hadn't worn out yet; it was the most action the phone had seen in a decade.

_can i call u_

' _yess'_

After dialing, he didn't have to wait long. He almost wished she would have, so he could prepare himself for what to say. Danny would never break up with someone over the phone, for the simple reasons that it was a shitty thing to do and he wouldn't want someone to do it to him. He would want more after giving yourself to someone else, even friends.

"Hey Danny!" her voice came over the phone, and if he wasn't kind of reeling from the quick trip to sobriety, he would almost say she sounded nervous.

"Hey Val, how was today?"

"Ugh, sweaty and gross. How are you?"

"I'm… doing alright. Today was kinda shit, I'm enjoying a beverage tonight."

"Well, raise one up for me! Cheers!"

Danny laughed and rubbed his face, "Working tomorrow? Can I walk you home?"

"You're answering your own questions again…"

"So you don't work tomorrow?"

"I do, and you can. I get off at nine, so you better not start drinking before then."

"Ha-ha, I don't indulge that often."

A touch exasperated, "Don't think I haven't noticed how much you've been smoking. You smell like an ashtray when I pass you in the hall."

"Yeah, I got a problem. I'm working on it though. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, bye Danny."

If he was a little quick to hang up, he hoped she wouldn't notice. Hit with a wave of dreariness, Danny put the bottle on the nightstand along with his new journal and phone. Instead of peeling back the covers and duvet, he practiced going intangible, working through the layers until he was against the fitted sheet. The rate of his adaption was getting quicker the more he worked at it, and he found he wasn't sweating as much.

It wouldn't take long for it to be effortless, and on that positive note he drifted into a restless sleep.

The next day, he awoke with a much better start even though he dreaded breaking up with Valerie. He spent the whole day avoiding his family in his room, not giving a shit what Jazz came up with for dinner if anything, or whether his parents had found any more ghosts. He kept them firmly tuned out of his head; his ghost sense seemed to realise he didn't need to listen to every ecto-blob dissection. It wasn't good for his mental health, and neither did his potential breakup. Danny did good on his promise to Valerie to not indulge any more liquor, but she didn't say anything about sleeping the day away. In the end, it made him feel much better. All those nights spent as an insomniac, trying his powers and listening to those god-awful sounds in the basement, he deserved a decent rest. He slept in 'til noon, did all last week's homework until maybe three or four and took another nap to get him through close to nine. He pretty much snuck out of the house; his curfew was technically ten, but with his luck hopefully his parents would be too busy downstairs to notice. That was, if they didn't notice him leaving to be suspicious. He was getting good at avoiding the cams.

He was refreshed from a proper sleep, but still had not pieced together what he would say to her. Danny tried to play it cool when he met up with her outside the fast-food joint and they shared a smoke, like they usually did when they did this.

Danny walked her home, the night sky and cheap city lights omit of any ghostly presence, other than his own hidden inside. The whole walk was tainted with his mind running a mile a second, thinking of what to say, what to do. Does he kiss her on the cheek goodbye, or is that cruel? He wants to- is desperate to remain with a positive relationship. She was the first person he really befriended coming to this city, he didn't want to lose her friendship. Though, he knew if she needed space, or never wanted to see him again, he would have to endure it.

Coming to the entrance of her apartment building Danny paused. Before he could get the words out, Valerie spun on her heel facing him. Her long curly hair twirled around her and bounced where they landed. She was speaking before he could even process the words.

"Look, Danny, we're really good friends and I really like you," _But,_ Danny thought, "-,but, I have a lot going on in my life right now and I can't give you all that you deserve. But! I would really like to remain friends, if it isn't too awkward?"

It took an embarrassingly long time for him to process that, and by the time he did, her cool-calm demeanor was beginning to crack and look nervous. "Uh, sorry that was a lot to take in, but I understand Valerie. I feel… kind of the same way. Are you serious about being friends? I can still walk you home and stuff?"

Valerie smiled and pulled him into a light hug that he responded to quicker this time. He was almost getting used to being touched. "Yes, I mean it, you dummy. I'm going to be taking on working with my dad some nights, but I would like that."

Danny gave her a genuine smile, bid her goodnight, and went home- the usual way when he was sure he wasn't being watched.

* * *

Valerie trudged the stairs of her apartment building- the only good thing about the elevator being broken and living on the tenth floor was having the rhythmic sound of your trudging steps accompany your endless thoughts.

She felt guilty about lying to Danny, but was so happy that he seemed unphased and wanted to still be friends with her. He didn't have to know that she wouldn't be 'working with her father', nor would her father have to know that she wasn't taking on extra shifts at the Nasty Burger. Nobody would know about the weird, older man that approached her across the counter on shift and did not request something off the menu. He simply said to her:

" _If you want the proper tools to be able to take on your little dog problem, or_ any _related problem, give me a call and I'll deliver it. On the condition that you sign the agreement that comes with it, of course."_

He handed her a business card and left the building without saying another word. The rest of the day was spent as if in a dream.

Valerie couldn't stop obsessing how this guy knew about the ghost, knew her, and it would normally set off red flags; but he seemed normal enough, maybe a little sharp, but he didn't look sketchy. Plus the business card looked like it was embossed with real gold, which means he wouldn't be lying about the means to get her equipment. For the most part, he seemed legit. Honestly, the only thing that kept her from dialing the number right away was the conditions of the contract, and if she'd be up for it. She'd signed a contract for her cellphone, but other than that had no idea what to expect. If there was one thing she'd learned from her Daddy, it was to read the whole thing thoroughly, even twice. The only thing bugging her was, what if she found something in it she didn't approve of? Did she send the box back, or did she argue her stipulations? Either way, there was no way Valerie was signing her soul away, though the thought of being able to fight ghosts was tempting. She at least wanted to be able to defend herself; and it wasn't like the lipstick thing Danny gave her wasn't some comfort, she just didn't know if it would continue to be effective.

The other problem, the one that had her pulling out her cell and punching in the numbers, was the rumours. Danny was right about her; she didn't listen to nasty gossip, but there were some rumours that her ears would automatically pick up on. Ghosts were one of those things. And in the last week, more people had been talking about them than probably her whole life in Amity Park. It had to have something to do with the Fenton's being back in town, and bringing up old complaints in the community that easily led to fake stories (and if there was one thing she heard from her Daddy about them was that they were impervious to negative comments like water off a duck's back, which is weird knowing Danny who was at least a little self-conscious about them). Saying that, there was a chance that the stories were just that; fake gossip created to stir the shit-pot. However, there was something about them that was a little too similar to her experience. Something was causing a rise in ghost activity, and that meant there was nobody doing anything about it _because nobody important believed._ The higher-ups fired her father for it, it seemed like all the half-brains were in charge of noticing when things weren't right. How could anybody miss the temperature changes, the way the lighting became dark and bright all at once with all the wrong hues that made your eyes burn? If nobody was going to do it, Valerie knew she was more than capable with her self-defense training and almost being a blackbelt. This would be a great experience if she could pull it off. If she could overcome this fear then nothing would stand in her way; plus it seemed like nobody else was going to do it.

She called the number, and the week after she signed the contract and put on the suit that seemed to be built from the future.

* * *

With a start, Danny awoke Monday morning.

For once in what felt like a whole month, but was really only three weeks, he had slept the whole night through without waking once. No ghostly night-calls coming through the floor, no sister's head thudding the desk halfway through an essay in the early morning next door, no stupid thoughts zooming around and preventing a dreamless sleep. Sunday had gotten him _too_ used to rest; he only had ten minutes to get ready and be at school in time for the first bell. If he was lucky, he could throw on yesterday's clothes and run to school and make it. Danny was getting used to having so much anxiety it was hard to have an appetite, but it didn't help if he was going to start missing breakfast because he no longer owned an alarm clock.

Danny rushed as best as he could- brushing his teeth while trying to pull on his shoes- but he could still hear the second bell ring two blocks away. He stopped jogging down the street, resigned to the fact that he was definitely going to be facing Mr Lancer's wrath. He wasn't exactly making a good repertoire with his teachers, but he couldn't exactly help it; since the Basement Thing, he'd had trouble reading and writing. It was like whatever happened to him turned him dyslexic. He'd been re-reading his journal entries from over the weekend, and he was noticing that he wasn't even writing in English at some points. He hadn't even realised he'd resorted to weird squiggles and symbols that somehow made sense to him. It was almost a good thing; he was writing in code without even knowing it. At least everything he knew would be encrypted. Danny just had to make sure he didn't hand in any homework written with it. He wasn't sure how he'd explain that, but he was sure he could blame it on his parents homeschooling somehow.

Once he arrived at class, he was right about getting chewed out by Lancer. He was giving the disappointment lecture and ignored the other teen's stares as he made his way to his desk. He spent the class trying to pay attention and ended up only copying half the notes. The bell rang and as the other kids were collecting their things and rushing out into the hall, Danny made a split second decision.

He walked up to Lancer's desk at the front and stood at the end furthest from the door. Lancer only raised an eyebrow and waited until everybody left the room. Danny respected that. "Sir, I'm, uh, having trouble reading the board. Would there be a way that I could get a copy of them somehow?"

Lancer only studied him for a moment, clearly trying to size up if he was making an excuse to be lazy and doze off in class or being serious or not. He sighed, seeming to go for the latter today. "I can leave the notes up on the board for you to take a picture of after class, as long as I see you make an effort to try and pay attention during the lesson."

Danny thanked him and made a move for the door when Lancer called him back. "Let me see what you got today. I saw your look of panic when I erased the board. Thank you for telling me."

For the first time since he began the semester, Danny went to the cafeteria before heading outside. If he didn't eat, he would get even more irritable than he was already feeling. That was no way to start his Monday, especially to his friends. Making his way to the counter, he grabbed a tray and eyed the _thing_ they were serving up. _It_ was perfectly summed up as this: a trovel of the field outside on top of a slice of Wonderbread. Deadpanning at the little old lady, he stuck out his tray. "What's this."

She was deadpanning right back, not even the fat mole on her cheek twitched. "New vegan option," she said, tossing the plate on the tray with a frisbee spin.

"I can smell meat, this can't be it."

"You're delusional, kid, NEXT!"

Well, he could at least eat the bread, he thought, picking at it on his way outside.

Tucker was laughing at him even before he sat down.

"Oh no, you got Sam's 'suggestion'"," he said pointing and guffawed at him.

"You knew about this?" Danny mock accused, throwing his tray down and body onto the bench.

"I suggested healthier options, and nowhere did I say dirt served on bread. Plus, the bread is so high in sugar and- Danny!"

He was shaking the slice over the ground, the grass and earth going back to where it belonged. "What, it's the only thing actually edible!"

He asked them how their weekend was, Sam filled Tucker in on them running into each other on Saturday. They shared a knowing look and Danny jumped in before they could start talking about Valerie.

"So, she broke up with me on Sunday."

"Seriously?" Sam said, disgusted.

"It was mutual, Sam. We both got a lot going on right now. I'm not sure how I can tell her about what happened, or anybody for that matter."

Tuck patted him on the back, "That's rough, buddy."

Sam gave him a small smile, unusual for her on a Monday. "I'm sure you'll meet someone you can trust."

"I got you guys, that's pretty sweet."

The bell signalling end of lunch rang and Danny grabbed his bag.

Noticing a commotion by the door, Danny stopped dead when he recognized who they were. His parents were in their gaudy orange and teal jumpsuits and pushing on a pull door. He called out to them before they could figure it out.

"Danny-boy!"

"What are you guys doing here?" he said skeptically, already regretting the answer.

"Well," his mother started, already bouncing with excitement, "I noticed you didn't take your lunch today, and we wanted to make sure you got our new prototype!"

Before he could latch onto the fact that they had made him lunch (?), he noticed his dad holding a grey and green thermos with a F stamped on it.

"It can hold ghosts!" His dad yelled, thrusting it out at him, "And Soup!"

Danny took it, and as he processed it, began looking at the thermos in a new light. This was exactly what he needed if he ever ran into any ghosts. Mind already spinning like a hamster wheel, he thanked his parents. Sam and Tucker said their greetings before pulling him off, excusing them for class. As soon as they were out of earshot, he started rambling.

"Oh, man this is sweet. I think I want to destroy the prints, otherwise they might want to make more and I don't want them used on me. Also, they made me a _lunch_? What in the ever-loving-"

The rest of the school day was normal, up until the point that the school cleared out of students. Mr Lancer had asked Danny to come back to fill out the rest of his missing notes, and as reluctant as he was to do so, he knew he would never get it done if he didn't. Sam and Tucker said they would come with him and they would continue to hang out after. They were going back to Sam's house later to do Tucker's defense training, which was hilarious to watch he assumed. Sam seemed like the type to have access to all sorts of classes through her rich parents, and she wasn't the kind to pass up opportunities like that. Tucker was also the exact opposite of athleticism so it would definitely be entertaining. If it was fun enough, maybe he could even spar. His parents had taught him more than enough self-defense.

After writing the notes, Lancer being surprisingly patient, they made their way towards the entrance of the school. Passing by the cafeteria doors, Danny stopped cold when a blast of cold air escaped his lips. He reached out a hand to both of them when they continued walking, deep in conversation. Catching their elbows, he pulled them close to the doors. They were eyeing him with serious concern, but Danny lightly peeked through the cracked doors without saying anything to them yet.

"Houston, we got a problem," he said, moving out of the way so they could peek through the door in his place.

At the counter, instead of there being the little old lady with the mole that he'd met this afternoon, there was a rather heavy-set _floating_ woman in an older style server garb. With his human eyes, it was hard to see her features through the glitch and blurr of her aura. What he could see was her apron was pink with frills and she had a matching hat that made her look utterly ridiculous, but for the most part she looked harmless. She had the distinct characteristics of a weak ghost; minimal atmospheric changes, only light green skin and wispy hair (stronger ghosts exhibited a bluer hue, normally), and the stronger the ghost, the more wild the environment reacted. They glanced down the hallways for all clear before sneaking into the cafeteria. It was empty except for the ghost, and them now willingly. Danny approached her and, hoping to get this over with, was already fishing the thermos out of his backpack.

"Excuse me ma'am, what are you doing here so late?" he asked innocently, batting his blue eyes.

"Why hello, dearie!" she said in just as innocent, but grandma voice with that distinct echo. "I'm just finishing up. Say, did we serve all the meat? I can't find it anywhere."

Danny was wondering how to respond to that, and decided to skip over the automatic response that, as the Cafeteria Lady, she should know where it is. Before he could say anything, he heard Tucker chime in behind him. "No, Sam got meat off the menu."

Instantly, the room turned colder and everything exploded into harsh light. She flamed into blue, her hair burning up towards the ceiling. " **NO MEAT?** "

Danny involuntarily took a step back. All of a sudden, she was showing characteristics of a much more powerful ghost. The room had dropped at least ten more degrees and the lighting was suddenly blinding and he had to focus to keep his eyes from automatically adjusting with his powers. His body prepared for an attack as he lowered into a defensive position, nervous of how the ghost would react now. The sudden change in personality was almost frightening.

"Whoah, whoah, whoah, I didn't _mean_ to get it off the menu! I just said they needed some healthier options!" Sam defended before Danny could say anything again. Appliances, dishes and food trays were all beginning to float around in warning. It was as good a time as ever to transform before the sound of things being destroyed alerted whoever was left in the building. His rings of bright light didn't do much to contrast the now piercing glare from the other ghost. Though he was getting used to the sensation of floating off the ground and the weightlessness that came with it, he was still adjusting to the speed at which he moved. Any small burst of movement and his light body moved easily, and he often overshot where he wanted to go. Harder, even, to stop momentum. It didn't help that his ghost vision automatically attuned to the brightspot that now emitted from the enraged ghost. As cool as it was, it could be distracting and he wasn't yet used to the unique luminescence ghosts gave off. Instinctively from years of being blinded, he wanted to avert his eyes but forced himself not to. He could see through her natural camouflage now, and she really did look like an older, heavy-set lady whose cheeks had begun to droop. She almost did look normal, except for the fangs now growing out of her mouth and the red overtaking her scleras. Even her skin was beginning to change hue, much to his dismay. Of course the first ghost he would come across would be powerful. Danny often learned his lessons the hard way, though not for lack of trying.

" **HEALTHIER OPTIONS? THERE ARE ONLY FOUR FOOD GROUPS: MEAT, MEAT,** _ **MEAT, AND**_ _ **MEAT!**_ "

With each shout, the school rumbled. A clattering sound down the hallways were echoing towards the cafeteria, like multiple things were ricocheting off the lockers. Between whirlwind of clanging coming their way, objects around the room crashing and breaking, and the hum of energy the Cafeteria Lady was buzzing with, it was deafening to all of them. Danny dropped the thermos in an effort to protect his sensitive ears and saw his friends doing the same. Rage was bubbling up in his stomach at the ridiculousness of it all and as he turned to shout something nasty at her, the cafeteria doors flew off their hinges. He had barely enough time to register it, and for once his speed worked to his advantage. As soon as his hands felt both of his friends body's under them, he turned on the intangibility. Just in time for a flurry of produce to go through them and towards the ghost welcoming it with open arms. It was uncanny how much there was; it was draining to hold the intangibility on all three of them with so much passing through them. Danny felt disgust as chicken wings, pork chops, steaks, anything meat to be named stuck to her body and packed until she was gone and stood in her place was a still-growing meat monster. A mouth opened in what seemed to be the face, underneath the two red glowing orbs serving as eyes. Bits dropped off the roof of the mouth to be swallowed up by the lower jaw. It was a hypnotic, disgusting waterfall of slurry. It took a lumbering step towards them- the building shook in response, with cheap plaster ceiling tiles breaking on the floor. That's when he remembered the thermos that was now significantly closer to her than it was to him. Instead of thinking, he lunged for it. This time, his speed was a little too excessive. He managed to snatch the thermos as he blew by it, and too late did he see the meat leg appendage swinging towards him with an accompanying roar.

 _Intangible!_ his brain screamed at him, but the hit had already connected. _Too late!_ He screamed back at it, as he sailed through the cafeteria wall and onto the field outside. Distantly, he heard his name being screamed by Sam and Tucker and the lumbering footsteps of the monster advancing. Pushing himself off the ground and shaking his head to try and get his wits about him, he lunged back through the wall. His friends had backed up to the farthest wall, but with each huge step she gained on them. Danny pointed the thermos and concentrated his energy in his hands, prayed for the best, and took off the cap. A silver beam blasted out and hit her dead-on in the back, and he'd be guilty about it if she wasn't so terrifyingly close to his very human, _mortal_ friends. Instead of it doing what his parents said it would do, but honestly wasn't a big surprise, it did nothing but enraged her. She turned and roared at him, turning in a staggering circle and coming towards him instead. Danny would take it as a win. Popping the cap back on, he wondered what to do next. His parents had given him no instruction with it, so there was a chance he was doing something wrong.

There was an even greater chance that it never would have worked in the first place.

Tucker's voice yelled across the hall, but he cut him off as soon as he recognized his name. "Da-!"

"Don't! We need to get used to you not knowing me!" he panted, suddenly overcome with fatigue from the use of intangibility and the loss of energy he had put in the thermos. His side where he landed on the ground throbbed and his arm hurt whenever he moved it. Deep bruising from landing on it, most likely. Whatever he was going to do, it had to be quick.

Tucker looked surprised at his outburst, but his look was one of understanding. Danny had told them about his encounter with his parents when he was ghost elbow deep in the fridge, and the threat of being discovered had begun to seem more real. He knew he wasn't mistaken in how his parents, or _anybody,_ would react to what he was now. Catching the ghosts were second priority compared to keeping his identity secret.

"Like a Pokemon!" Tucker continued, and elaborated at his confusion, "Maybe you have to weaken it before you catch it!"

Danny didn't have long to think about it, but it seemed logical. How could the thermos suck the ghost up with a foot-thick meat suit preventing contact? The meat had to go, but he had to be close enough to destroy it. Gripping the thermos tight, he threw his fear out the window and did the unexpected. He charged her, needing to get the intangibility just right. There wouldn't be many more chances before his exhaustion caught up with him.

The first attempt was a spectacular failure. Realising too late that she was onto him and was already swinging a meaty fist, he decided to just take the hit rather than waste the energy. The collision with the wall, then the floor hurt a bit more than the grass outside. It took him longer to peel himself off the floor, even longer to realise she was speaking to him. Muffled booming through the meat layers, but still enough to ring in his ears and throb his already spinning head.

" **JUST A HATCHLING,** " she tutted, " **LET ME TAKE CARE OF THE MENU-CHANGER. YOU ARE MUCH TOO YOUNG TO DISOBEY ME.** "

She approached a few more thundering steps and he swayed on his feet. This had to be it; he wasn't sure if he could take another hit like that. Every minute the dizziness got worse and her words were sounding less and less like actual English.

" **HOWEVER, YOU DO SMELL DIFFERENT. NOT LIKE A REGULAR HATCHLING,** " another step closer, vibrating his brain, " **AND WHAT IS THAT THUDDING? SOMETHING IS MOVING IN YOUR CHEST.** "

Again, Danny didn't have time to really process her words before she was practically on him. Was she really that quick, or was he concussed? Time seemed to move slower as her fist came towards him this time and he took the chance. Meat passed through him once again and when he was close to the centre, he released it in his arm and dug his fingers into the cold make-up of a ghost's body (it wasn't quite flesh).

' _Meat ain't no good with freezer-burn,'_ sounded a lilting, teasing voice between his ears. There was no time to file away that it didn't seem like his thought, nor his voice. Instinct seemed to take over after that; he needed to disrupt her armour and there was really only one way that he'd been practicing. The spikes lining the forearms, shoulders, back and neck of his jacket obeyed his vision of a skewer kebab. In one simultaneous move, the spikes elongated, two-three- _four_ feet, and burst the meat suit into a million chunks flying everywhere.

Left in a ring of cleanliness from the force of the blast, Danny and the Lunch Lady stood alone. She stared at him in shock, reverted back to the 'nice' appearance before her little outburst. Danny had one hand gripping her shoulder and the other had the thermos pointed at her gut.

"Sorry 'bout this, but I don't do well with orders." he said, flicking off the cap with his thumb. The silver beam connected with her this time, and instead of it just absorbing into her, it seemed to be absorbing her. She blurred into the beam until she was spinning towards it. Once she was sucked inside, Danny quickled popped the cap back on. His legs and powers gave out at the same time, slumping to the floor in his regular jeans and flannel. Chest heaving from the exertion and adrenaline, he was so focused on trying to calm his breathing he didn't hear his friends approach. Flinching at the touch to his shoulder and the shame realising what he done was only reduced by their sympathetic faces.

"That was awesome, Danny! Are you alright?" Sam said.

It took him a long time to process that because he was focused on processing that she was covered in bits of meat. In her hair, stuck to her face and clothes. Tucker was pretty much the same. He was laughing until their worried expressions caused him to snap his mouth shut.

"Sorry. Yes, I'm fine. I might've hit my head, but it's nothing i can't handle. Let me get that meat off you."

Danny knew he was pushing his limits with his powers, especially with the extra effort it took to transfer with his human body in control. It was more of an exercise in control. He knew he had the strength for it; if he overestimated himself, he would just be pushing his boundaries.

If all ghosts coming through the portal were as strong as that, or even stronger, he needed to advance like, _yesterday._

Danny grabbed both of their hands and a burst of willpower, they went transparent and all the meat dropped off them. With a giddy grin, he shook both their hands excitedly, "I did it!" and promptly passed out.

* * *

Tucker wasn't exactly sure how ridiculous it looked for two teenagers, especially them- dweeby, lanky guy like him and tiny Sam in her ripped black pants and goth makeup- carrying a 6'2" lanky guy like Danny down the street. Danny had been heavy when they had dragged him up two flights of stairs the Day of the Basement. Though, he'd been semi-conscious that time. Now he was pure dead-weight. Tucker had taken a turn piggy-backing him home. He was ashamed to admit Danny's shoes may have dragged on the ground a third of the way. By then he was panting and ready to keel over. Sam scoffed at him.

"You're building up muscle mass for our training class."

"If I have to build up muscle mass, so do you pipsqueak!"

He knew how much she hated when he brought her height into arguments. It was a good way to get her to do what he wanted for once. That was how they ended up with his arms hooked under Danny's armpits and Sam walking between his feet, holding his ankles. She was even demonstrating her muscles by alternating lifting his legs up like weights. When they finally arrived at his house, they could only hope that his parents were absent like he often said they were. Sam had to do an odd maneuver to open the front door, while Tucker whisper-shouted at her to hurry up. Sneaking into a house carrying a passed out teenager was not the quietest. Tucker accidentally slammed the door closed when he used his foot. Hopefully his family wouldn't notice the slight dents in the wall from the corners of them banging into the credenza. They got as far as the bottom of the stairs, Sam already a few steps up, when the sound of someone clearing their throat stopped them dead. There, standing in the doorway from the living room to the foyer, was a red-headed girl with steely blue eyes. They were a greener shade than Danny's, but they both had a stubborn, no-bullsshit look. Obviously related then. It must have been Jazz, who Danny had mentioned, but they'd never met. No time like the present, Tucker thought bitterly.

"Hey, Jazz, right? Danny had a rough day at school and fell asleep after class, so we decided to bring him home!" Oh, what an atrocious lie. He could feel the burn of Sam's death stare at the side of his head, but with years of training he ignored it. Giving a subtle push towards her, she got the message and started to slowly step back up the stairs.

"I'm Sam, this is Tucker. We're gonna hang out for a while, but we'll be out of here before dark. Bye!"

Jazz looked like she wanted to say something, but nothing was coming out. It was eerily similar to how Danny looked when they mentioned something he'd never heard; they were familiar with this look, Danny was seriously uncultured when it came to their generation's trends. Jazz also seemed to have a knack for spacing out, like Danny. They were at the top of the stairs and in his bedroom before she figured out how to respond to one of the strangest things Danny has found his way into the middle of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all comments and kudos are treasured <3


	10. EIGHT - SKULKER (DANNY)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** Wow this chaps even longer! Sorry about so much Danny POV, kinda needed to get the story going OTL I think we're about halfway done Arch 1/3
> 
> **Warnings** : Some pretty graphic description about suturing, other various injuries, swearing
> 
> _"I'm falling in deep_   
>  _Do you already know my love is after you_   
>  _I'm writing letters in my head_   
>  _I sign my name but never send_   
>  _All of my thoughts are you_   
>  _All of my mind's on you"_
> 
> Meg Myers, _After You_

When Danny woke up, he knew instantly from years of experience that he was concussed. Groaning, while rubbing the heel of his palm into his eye, he tried to focus the other one to no avail. The ceiling of his bedroom, including the ceiling fan that was off but looked like it was on, was all blurry and moving. When he removed his hand from his face, it took him way longer than normal to realise Tucker and Sam were hovering beside the bed.

"How'd we get here?" he asked, voice sounding slurred to his own ringing ears. Which was another tally under the 'definitely hit my head too hard' list, along with the dizziness that was marginally fading.

Tucker opened his mouth to answer, but Sam shot him a glare that had his mouth clicking shut. He pushed up his glasses, slightly embarrassed.

"What was the last thing you remember?" she asked.

It took him longer than normal to digest her words and sort them out in his head. It was a relatively easy question that had his brain running in a tight circle. Me? Remember? Last thing? Me, a teenager in high school. Remember, being at said highschool. Last thing? That's where his brain stopped and ran in place for an absurdly long amount of time. There was the panic as he was late to school, the appreciative surprise at Lancer wanting to actually help him with his school work, and the dread at peeking into the cafeteria as soon as he felt the cold breath release from his mouth. Now that he was thinking about it, the cafeteria puzzle started to pull itself together. He remembered the strange ghost lady who had freaked out about the menu change, the exhaustion at all the intangibility despite him trying to increase his stamina, the impact of him sailing into the ground and then into the wall, and lastly, him sucking her into the thermos and attempting one last stunt of intangibility to get his friends rid of the meat. Danny was lost in thought about the battle when he heard Sam call his name. She sounded professional and calm, almost like a real nurse. His mom had sounded like that when he got hurt, but it often had a tone of reprimand. There was none of that here.

"Sorry, what?"

"What was the last thing you remember?"

"Uh, defeating that Cafeteria Lady and also getting my ass handed to me. I passed out, right? After using my powers on you?"

At that, Tucker exploded, not able to keep it in anymore. He only lowered his voice when he saw Danny flinch at the sudden volume. "Do you know how long it took you to get up when she threw you into the wall? You even told us you hit your head! Why wouldn't you tell us you were exhausted?"

Danny gave him a wry smile, unused to being reprimanded for _admitting_ defeat. Whether it was 'homework' or physical training, his parents had always pushed him past his limits until he was sure he would break. There was never a reprieve when they were on the road together; everything was a constant evaluation. He knew he had been tired, but he also knew he wasn't down for the count. He just grossly miscalculated on how far the fumes he'd been running on would get him. That didn't seem like an appropriate response, judging by Tucker's burning stare.

"I _thought_ I could do it. Plus, it would have been suspicious if you guys had walked out of there covered in that stuff." His mouth was just spilling out his thoughts at this point, and he melted at their fond expressions. "And! I have supernatural healing! Besides, that mess in the caf is gonna be some _real_ shit, but I am sorry. I won't do that again unless I know I have the energy for it."

"It's alright, Danny. It's unusual for concussed people to pass out long enough for them to get carried home, but I guessed it might be because of energy loss." Sam said, patting his hand fondly, but cautious like she wasn't sure really how to touch people. He slowly pushed himself up the bed, revelling in what a hilarious picture that would have made.

"Also," Tucker, cut in, "You are so right about the cafeteria, man. It was like a meat bomb went off in there. Ishiyama is going to be livid!"

"That's… the principal, right?"

"Yeah, she's a real pushover when it comes to bullying and the star football players, like Lancer. But when it comes to pranks and stuff like this, her punishment is long, lecturing assemblies."

Danny's upper lip curled. He was familiar with those, and those kinds of things hurt his brain. With no attention span and an overactive imagination, Danny often got stuck in scenario loops when he had nothing else to do. They could be good; ideas and plans that were actually beneficial to his health and future or, they could be bad. Bad scenarios that could be sometimes without merit, that only served to wind his anxieties higher. Rarely could they be productive and give him good ideas were he ever in those situations. More often did they end with self-deprecation and outcomes he would be ashamed to tell anyone. Adding in the fact that he now had more ammunition for _bad_ versus _good_ , especially with the knowledge he was now the very creature his parents hunted, he would be willing to spend less time alone with his thoughts.

"So, what do we do with the thermos?" Tucker asked.

Danny thought about it for a minute. His brain was starting to work smoother, but he could already feel the onset of a headache. His arm was still sore from where he'd landed the first time, and there were dull aches from where she had hit him, but other than that and his head, he wasn't feeling all that bad. Physically, at least. There was a dull ache where his core rested in the centre of his chest. There lied another problem. It took energy to fire the thermos, energy he had needed to keep from passing out.

"I'm sure my parents made something that can release them back into the Ghost Zone," he hoped, "Now that I know the thermos works, I have a little more faith in them. If not, I can make one myself. That might be better, that they don't know I'm catching and releasing ghosts."

They both looked content with that answer, relieved that they wouldn't be carrying around a ghost that they would rather encounter only the once for long.

"I did have to focus my… ghost energy? To the thermos, to get it work. I don't know how I knew that, but I knew it needed it for the beam. That's why I'm not sure I have to be worried about the original blueprints. I don't think they'll get it to work without that external power. It wouldn't hold."

Tucker was quiet for a minute, stroking his chin. Finally he adjusted his glasses and spoke. "Do you think you could concentrate your energy into something, like a battery, over time? Then you'd have stored energy so you'd never have to worry."

Danny thought about it, "Yeah, that seems possible. I did transfer energy into the thermos, and it's made mostly out of regular, organic material. The only thing special about it is the containment technology. I guess we just hope whatever I'm putting the energy in can handle it."

"My dad's got some gaudy old gold chains he'd never miss. That's a good conductor."

"Sam! You can't steal stuff from your dad!"

"Well, I've already stolen it in case they ever disown me so I'd have something to melt down. What!"

They all laughed at her. Danny knew it wasn't right, but if Sam said he wouldn't miss it, Danny thought it wouldn't hurt. Besides, the two of them finally looked the most relaxed since he'd woken up. He was seldom to ruin it because he couldn't accept a gift. Sam spoke, and the underlying lilt of anxiety was gone. "So we now have a way to capture ghosts, we have to work on your limits for your powers, precisely how much it drains you to do stuff to us. I assume that's what made you so tired?"

"I… may have overestimated how much energy it would take to use it on others, yes."

"We should also set up an obstacle course or something to work on your teleporting or whatever." Tucker added.

"You saw me do that, huh?"

"It was pretty memorable how you flew yourself directly into her foot and then managed to go _through_ the wall."

"Twice," Sam chimed in, "You totally flew yourself into her fist too."

"I did that on purpose! I just… didn't respond quick enough."

"Add reaction time to the list," Sam said, before brightening as if she remembered something, "Oh! Could you understand her?"

"Who, the ghost?"

"Who else? I mean, she was speaking English when she still looked, uh-"

"-Like a nice old lady?"

"Yeah, sure... But when she was yelling at you near the end, it was all staticky and mumbly."

"Almost like a mix of a radio noise, insect clicking, and deep-sea creature sounds." Tucker said.

Danny gaped at them, thoughts slowly piecing together. Not only did ghosts have their own dimension and biology, they also had their own language that Danny now understood.

"I wasn't speaking it back to her, was I?"

"No, but- do you think you could've?"

"The journal you gave me, in the drawer."

There was the sound of it sliding open and shut and then the rustling of pages. "What are we- oh."

"I've already been writing in it, subconsciously. I've never heard of a language being intrinsic, other than like, body language. But to answer your question, I understood her. I didn't even know she switched languages."

"This might be a positive, Danny. You were worried about us calling by your name, and this way, whatever the ghosts say to you will stay confidential. If you begin to talk it back, everything will be coded and you won't worry about saying something you don't want anyone to overhear."

Danny thought about this, seeing the positive, but also the negative. Always the negative. "I just don't want to be so comfortable with it I write it on my homework, or say it by accident."

"We can practise writing, and you can always do digital reports. Or if you ever speak it, you can always say it's like pig-latin, or whatever." Danny nodded, comfortable with a backup plan.

"So what did she say?"

"Something about me being a hatchling, which is what I assume they call the freshly deceased ghosts, and then she was asking me about my heartbeat. Nice to know even to ghosts I'm not normal."

"What's normal anyway..." Sam said.

Tucker nodded, "You know what's not normal? Hatchlings! Do you think they really hatch from like, eggs? Fully grown?"

"That sounds pretty wicked, actually!"

"Yeah, wicked gross…" Sam said, and they all laughed. Suddenly, one of their phones rang. There was no guess as to who's played Nirvana's _Smells Like Teen Spirit._ Sam dug it out of her back pocket, scoffed when she saw the display and answered. The emotionless voice and annoyed expression told Danny it was one of her parents. From what he'd heard from her talking about them they were very conservative, wealthy beyond their own means with no grace of benefaction, and had little regard for her or others. The only person in her home with whom she had a loving relationship was with her Grandma. Sam addressed her as Nanny and spoke with a soft, loving tone; the exact opposite of how she was talking now.

"Hello, Father."

There was a short stern voice talking on the other end that had her biting her lip to keep from laughing. "Yeah, I'm hanging out with my two boyfriends. I'll be home in a bit."

She hung up the phone on that note. She released a sigh before laughing at their expressions. "What! It drives him up the wall to know I hang out with guys. It's not my fault he jumps to conclusions!"

"You really do nothing to help yourself, y'know." Tucker said, shaking his head.

"Would he ban you from seeing us or something?" Danny asked.

"What can he do, pull me out of school?"

"You shouldn't say stuff like that," Tuck warned. "You know how things happen in Amity. Next thing you'll know, you're being shipped off to some girl's boarding school."

"What?" Danny said, confused.

"It's an old thing, with families who have been here for generations. Foley's are one of them. Sam's parents moved her when she was what, three? So people like them don't believe when we say odd things happen here. Dreams, visions, wishes coming true. Not always pleasant stuff, either."

"I have to admit, I was skeptical," Sam said, "But as soon as you start reading into things deeper, the less coincidental it seems. It's like the city does it's best to sweep stories like that under the rug, but they can be found. Like, Casper High for example. Ghost reports have dated back to before the 1940's, always the same things mentioned and usually in conjunction to that locker."

"So, that kind of stuff has been popular here since before my parents. Seems odd to think that they've always been here. Guess it makes sense, 'cause supernatural exploration has been on my father's side for generations, and they're from here."

"Why do you think we believed you so quickly when you said your parents were ghost hunters?"

Sam's phone chimed as a text came in. She looked at it and sighed. "I'm sorry, Danny, I have to go otherwise he'll really start tripping. Go get some water, try to stay away from strenuous brain activity-"

"-Yes, I know how to deal with a concussion-"

"-No ghost experiments tonight, and if you can try to keep track of how long it takes for your symptoms to go away. It'll be good to keep track of how long it takes your ghost healing for various injuries, though if we could keep that to a minimum, that'd be fantastic."

Danny smiled and shook his head, fondly exasperated. It was nice, if different, to have friends who cared.

"I'll walk her home. G'night, Danny, feel better!"

* * *

Danny didn't write poetry.

He often wrote in journals - Jazz always called them diaries and he hated it, but she was right in the very definition of the word. A private, daily record. When he so often remembered to do it, it was such a thing. So writing for himself was a very different, very real personal thing.

Poetry seemed to be the same thing, to his dismay.

The following week after the Cafeteria thing, school was a complete mess. Math was easy, back when the equations didn't look like a bunch of squiggles that moved around. It wasn't bad when he could hold the paper up to his face, but reading the board was a crapshoot. It took a week for the symptoms of his concussion and energy-fatigue to go away, so gym class was terrible. He changed into his gym clothes in the bathroom stall because the bruising on his chest lasted longer than he'd expected. The logical reason was because he drained himself of his powers, ergo the lack of healing powers. There were more negative consequences to the drain than he'd thought there'd be. His core would pulse, the chill in his chest a constant reminder of his mistake, his human body ached and his ghost body seemed leaden, on top of his brain not functioning normal.

Furthermore, it seemed that flyers were being passed out in the Ghost Zone, if the influx of his ghost breath was anything to go by. Sam gave him shit for fighting through his concussion and against her doctor's orders of rest. It's not like he preferred to get his semi-coherent ass kicked by sentient octopi, vultures, and other various ghost animals. They seemed to be getting more and more cognizant and _humane;_ Danny nearly had a heart-attack (if it was possible) when the bird he'd been trying to suck into the thermos one night swore back at him. Not just in ghost-speak, oh no, _definitely_ in English. A distinct, Southern accent and Danny didn't even want to know what Texas was like in the Ghost Zone. So whether it was due to his concussion or his sleepless nights that seemed to be him chasing ghosts more and more, he didn't even notice the blend into October. How could he, when he was too busy figuring out how to shoot ectoblasts, or at what speed flying in his ghost form did his legs disappear into a wisp of air? That wasn't mentioning the paranoid feeling of being watched for the last week or so. Which had nothing to do with Sam and Tucker's training; they thought by randomly throwing stuff at him he would get better reaction time. So when he went to class one day and saw the date on the board, it caught his attention. It should feel monumental to him; living in a place for a whole month, but it was all overshadowed by his new abilities. There was no excitement, there was no new sudden revelation or stability from it. If anything there was something akin to disappointment, or maybe dread. A month in one place and he had so irrevocably changed his entire life past a point of no return.

That revelation was nothing compared to the dismal nightmare that was his English assignment. The class had until the end of next week to write three different poems and read one in front of the class. That was probably the worst thing Lancer could have asked of him. Sharing something personal with peers who he didn't know, who didn't give a rat's ass about him? Was he trying to humiliate him? He crumpled up the draft piece of paper and shot it into the trash can, which was about half a football field away and aimed from up in his Sycamore tree in the far end of the park. It hit the rim of the can's top, bouncing into the hole in a great green flash of flame. Approximately 3.6 seconds later, also to Danny's great stab of depression, the whole top of the trashcan burst into a great burning mass of ectoplasmic fire, lid blasting off like a rocket ship landing a good twelve feet away.

"Great!" he groaned as he pulled out his pen and pondered over what to write next.

"Hey!" a familiar voice yelled. He looked up sullenly.

Sam rode in on her bike, silver shining in the streetlights. Reflective lights burned in his eyes like a burst of hot air from an open oven. Darn migraine. He was so preoccupied with rubbing his palms as hard as he could into his eye sockets, he didn't see the furious scowl on her face. A scowl which only worsened when she realized he wasn't paying any attention to her. She brought her bike to a stop and began digging around in her purse. When she finally pulled out what she wanted, a lipstick container with an obnoxious Fenton logo wrapped all the way around the cap, a sadistic grin crossed her face.

Danny was flinching and had an arm thrown up to protect his face before he knew what happened; the tree branch next to him exploded by a green blast . He stared as the branch crashed to the ground. He blinked at Sam, whose face was now twisted in a surprised grimace.

"Hey!" he yelled back at her.

"I didn't expect it to do _that_ much damage!" she yelled back. They both stared at the two green burning piles, which quickly burnt out into smoldering piles that stunk of oranges. Sam pushed her bike over to Danny, who flew down and met her halfway. It was close to nine in the evening, so Danny didn't worry about park-goers seeing him.

"Sorry, I was kind of preoccupied. My english homework isn't going well," he sighed, rubbing the back of his head. All it did was ruffle his silver hair, which began floating upwards like he was underwater.

"Doesn't mean you can literally shoot it into the trash." She placed her other hand on her hip, "And I'm sorry I hit the tree," he stared. "Shot at you" she corrected.

He gave her a small smile, "I'm sorry too. Let me transform back, then we can walk together." He gestured down to his feet, which seemed more content to float a couple inches off the ground. Due to his strange ethereal glow and the silver hair, he stood out like a sore thumb at dusk. He floated back to the base of the giant tree, checked both ways before concentrating on the cold energy beside his heart until the rings at his waist appeared. The light ghosting of energy chilled his skin as the rings travelled across his body.

He walked back over to her, kicking lightly at the grass with his sneakers, thinking of what to say. Sam spoke first, probably sensing his unruliness.

"So how is your draft coming?" she asked, pushing her bike. They set off at a slow pace, an awkward air tense between them.

This subject was one Danny would like to drop, but answered the question regardless. "It's… okay, I guess. It frustrates me," he admitted.

Sam seemed surprised at this, "Why?"

"I don't know, I just… don't want people to judge me, I suppose."

"Well, that's kind of the thing about poetry. It's not like you're writing an autobiography. You can be as vague as you like and still get your feelings across."

Danny thought about this, just staring up at the stars. The silence didn't feel so awkward anymore now that they'd been talking, but Danny couldn't help feeling like he was… exposing a little of himself to Sam. A little more than he was used to anyways. To him it seemed like he was always struggling with his feelings and the lump of guilt that came with it made it hard to get words out. He was closer to Tucker and Sam than he'd been with anybody, and his brain was beginning to struggle. It was getting harder and harder to differentiate if his feelings towards them were strictly friendly, or something else he wouldn't dare admit.

That also scared him somewhat. A lot.

"Don't you think that there will always be someone who can read between the lines?" Danny asked, looking at Sam out of the corner of his eye. Sam seemed transfixed on her bike handles and she twisted the rubber covers with her hands. This was the only indication Danny had that she had heard him, and he wrung his hands as he waited patiently.

"Maybe, but if somebody paid that much attention to you like that, wouldn't you want to know?" She said smoothly, having no idea what her words did to Danny's heart. He didn't want to look at her, knowing heat in his face telling him exactly what he looked like, but did anyways to gauge her expression.

She had her lips pursed cutely, but other than that she didn't wear anything else but a neutral expression. She didn't look all that _internally conflicted_ like how Danny currently felt. This only served to make him all the more nervous, but he'd wanted what she truly thought.

"Yes," he admitted softly. _If only it was you or Tucker,_ was the thought before he could stop it.

Sam didn't look surprised, but she looked at him with honest eyes. "Then you have no reason to be afraid." A pause.

"How are you and Valerie?"

His small smile slipped off his face in an instant. Is that what she thought he was talking about? This whole time? Had he totally shat the bed on not telling them really what happened between them, and by that, he meant that he was _relieved_ when she broke it off?

"Uh, not good, I think. I walk her home from work once in a while, but she's been really busy working so I haven't seen her much." _And it's usually me who initiates it,_ he didn't say. It came out a lot smoother and detached than he really felt. Either he was becoming an excellent actor or he was really faking it until he made it.

"Oh, that's…" Sam trailed off, not looking at him. Clearly he had stumped her there.

"Sad? Lame?"

"No!"

"Pathetic? Just a little bit commiserable?" he said, bumping her shoulder. She laughed a bit, pushing him back.

Danny smiled, the first genuine smile he felt he'd had in a long time and with a burst of courage, "I got some booze back at my place, should we call Tuck and-"

_**Kaboom!** _

A blast hit the ground beside them, tearing up the grass of the already damaged park, the earth trembling beneath their feet. Above them floating in the late evening sky was an unfamiliar ghost, the barrel of his huge blaster aimed right at them.

"There you are, Ghost Child! I have been looking for you!" the giant animatronic ghost sneered, teeth bared.

It was a mechanical voice with a deep baritone that vibrated to his core. His words were spoken in ghost speak, and the feeling laced in the words told Danny it was an insult woven in a compliment; like it was annoying that Danny somehow evaded him, while also impressing him. In an instant, Danny recognized the feeling as the same as he'd been sensing for the last week when he felt like he was being watched. Danny didn't know why his ghost sense hadn't tipped him off; or maybe it had and Danny had mistaken it for all the lower-level ghosts he'd been catching. Whatever it was, he had dropped the ball. The ghost stared at him with focused malice and the energy Danny could feel from his ecto-signature (which he was only beginning to understand, as it was something like a radio-wave and difficult to translate) said that this was a powerful ghost. Powerful enough that his own energy hummed in response, expecting a bloody fight. It was like revving an engine in response to a challenge at a red light.

Danny didn't have the energy for this, nor did he have any idea what he was up against. Did he risk a fight that could have consequences just for a slight insight for what this ghost wanted?

He could feel Sam's eyes on him, waiting for a response or maybe direction. He was getting faster at deciding the best course of action, his brain quickly working through the pros and cons of almost every decision. A. It was a Thursday, closer to the weekend which would be good if he got injured. B. Danny hadn't had much of a challenge since the Meat Lady, and the pressure of getting stronger tugged on his core almost constantly. He needed to be strong enough to protect his friends, protect his family and new city. This decision only needed those two points.

"Go home, Sam. I'll distract him. See you tomorrow?"

"Are you sure you'll-"

"I'll be fine. I'm just gonna test him out and then head home. My place has that ghost shield so he can't follow me in. Don't worry!"

She still didn't look convinced, but he could see when she realised she wouldn't be any help by the slump of her shoulders.

"Okay, see you tomorrow. There better not be a scratch on you!"

Danny did the smart thing and didn't promise anything, just gave her a grin as he focussed back on his core. Focussing on the anger of being interrupted in the middle of asking her to hang out, the cold burned through him in a flash and he was a ghost again. He waited to watch her bike away before focusing on the ghost's position in the sky. Faster than the ghost could process, Danny was beside him and using the momentum of his flash-flying to spin in a roundhouse kick. The back of his calve connected with the ghost's chestplate and Danny could see the surprise in ecto-fire in the eye holes of the metal skull-face with the ridiculous burning goatee before he blasted him to the ground.

And the battle begins.

* * *

Jazz had noticed multiple strange things about her brother lately; not just the fact that he had made two inseparable best friends in a month, but how he seemed to be tiptoeing around. Danny was always a lightfoot, trying to sneak things past, well, everyone and pass problems off as sarcastic remarks, but she knew something was up. For one, though she knew that he had these new friends (her parents, when she _did_ finally see them, would not stop bragging about them to her outward elation and inward dismay; she still didn't have any of her own, but that didn't mean she couldn't be _happy_ for him), she had not met them once. In a whole _month_! Well, she had 'met' them, but if one could call walking in on two people pretty much dragging her brother up the stairs an introduction, sure!

The other strange things were more inconspicuous; things her parents did not speak about, and Jazz suspected, did not even notice. There were dark bags under his eyes every day, already four times this week had she woken up to him pacing in his bedroom next to hers, and twice he had slipped up about mentioning an outing- _friendly_ in nature-, but always stopped and changed conversation before mentioning who he was with.

_That_ was definitely the weirdest.

Jazz didn't know what the other two things indicated (stress of some sort), but Danny had done nothing but also brag about his new friends as if he knew she had none of her own. So if one includes Danny's consistent need to be a petty, insistent little brat of a brother, the fact that he cuts off his bragging means he's hiding something, most likely a girl, most likely a _Date._ Jazz smiled at the thought. She vowed that she would try to squeeze something out of him tomorrow, but would leave it to him to tell her if he didn't crack.

It seemed like moving here _was_ turning out to be the best thing for him.

The next day, she questioned that.

It started normal- the soft chimes on her phone went off at quarter to five every weekday for her classes at seven thirty, and she was showered and dressed with an hour to spare plus commute. She was nothing if not a strict creature of habit and routine. That was what made this incident even more stark to her in its absurdity because Danny was definitely _not._ She quietly padded down the stairs and into the kitchen, still drowsy as she prepared a bowl of cereal, she turned and nearly dropped it. Danny was sitting there at the table in the middle of the room, staring at her, eyebrows raised. Jazz just stared, boggled.

"Good morning," he said, taking a bite of his toast, as if her entire world hadn't just flipped.

Never once, ever in her life, had he awoken and been ready before her. He may've been awake, but he could never string two words together until after breakfast. She knows 'never say never', but this. This was a constant throughout her entire life, as steady as her parent's obsession. Not only that, but she hadn't seen him there at all and she would have walked around him. She was tired, but she wasn't groggy enough to miss a long gangly teenager like him sitting in the middle of the kitchen. Danny dwarfed everything he stood around, much like their father. Plus, Danny liked his sleep and that worried her more. He still looked tired, the smudges under his eyes getting darker every passing day. That cemented her fear until it pushed all thoughts of his odd appearance out of her mind and instead. Instead, her mind was spinning with all sorts of questions, but suddenly she couldn't latch onto any of it. For once, Jazz Fenton, Master of Quick Comebacks, was stunned into silence since meeting Danny's friends. It took her the time to put milk in her bowl before she could come up with anything that wasn't among the lines of 'what the fuck, lil bro'.

"Playing too many video games?" she chided. He only rolled his eyes, but didn't respond. No snide remarks back? Double weird. Jazz sat at the table and thought for a minute, taking a bite. She decided to test to see if he was really as deficient of sleep as he looked.

"A girl called last night, asking for you."

Danny scoffed, carrying his plate to the sink. His face was an infuriating mix of disappointment reading _Nice Try_ and a mocking sneer. "She wouldn't call the house, she has my number."

He froze as his words seemed to sink in. "Fuck," he said before retreating out of the kitchen like a scurrying mouse. Jazz could only laugh at his back.

She hadn't seen him all day after that, he wasn't even home for dinner, opting to send her a text to tell mom and dad that he would be out with Sam and Tucker until curfew. If she even saw them. It infuriated her, how their parents took the excuses so easy coming from her, versus him calling them himself. Jazz couldn't help but feel maybe she was covering for him before shaking her head. She was supposed to be working on her essay before bed, it wasn't the time to be thinking about Danny and his possible girlfriend. Who was she kidding anyways? Danny was almost eighteen and perfectly responsible enough to… not get a girl pregnant. Right? Mom and Dad had the talk with him, right?

She snarled and pushed her laptop away, resigning to the fact that she wouldn't get anything done tonight. It was foolish of her to think that her parents had that much responsibility. She looked at her clock; it was almost ten o'clock (Danny's curfew) and he still wasn't home. Jazz went and sat on her bed, watching as the clock ticked closer and closer to his deadline. She had to think about what she had to say to him that didn't start with the topic, y'know, sex. Jazz didn't think that Danny had ever even gotten to first base, which was first, gross, and second, kind of helping his case for not getting a full safe sex seminar. Wait, no it wasn't. Scratch that.

The clock just changed to ten when she heard the front door slam open, eloquent as always. True to a tee, their parents were often quick to be around when they did something unfavorable. She heard mom's quiet passive-aggressive tones and could almost feel her father's disappointed stare. It was short lived; Danny was protesting that he was still technically on time and deserved credit for trying. It fell quiet after that, Jazz not being able to hear the words, if there were any. She didn't hear any footsteps up the stairs, just her parent's drudging down in the basement so the knock on the door startled her. How could such a tall person be so quiet (and move so fast, her brain holding the notepad asked).

"Come in."

Danny entered, looking more scattered than she expected. He never wore his leather jacket anymore ("Y'know, trying to be more vegan." had been the excuse then, and WHAT), and was now switching to t-shirts and tartan, flannel long-sleeve shirts. He had worn that jacket non-stop for years, so him taking it off was another thing on her list. It was as if she was watching her brother slowly unpeel infront of her eyes, becoming someone she didn't recognize. Jazz noticed that Danny's sleeve was ripped for some reason; she could tell even though he rolled them up to his elbows. The tense shoulders made her nervous and he was hiding his hands in his pockets, which had been a childhood habit to hide his bitten nails. His hair was dishevelled more than normal, and he just looked… frustrated. Tired. A familiar sight lately. She couldn't help but pat the bed. He reluctantly sat next to her, his stiff posture remaining even in sitting.

"Are you going to tell mom and dad?"

"What, that you _might_ be dating someone?"

"As if you don't know yet, smarty-pants."

"Real mature. To answer your question, no. My turn," Danny groaned loudly, "You know about safe sex, right?"

"My God, please stop." He went to leave and she reached for his arm, _he was already so fucking far away_.

"Danny, seriously, you know the important shit, right? Like precum _could_ get a girl pregnant and 'pulling out' isn't a thing, and- what the hell- Danny, your arm!"

The arm she had grabbed, the one with the ripped sleeve, was soaking wet and when she pulled her hand away it was stained with a thin sheen of red. The blood blended right in with the red patterned fabric; it was beginning to trail down his forearm until he muttered a curse and lifted it to stop it from dripping onto the floor. She was still in shock from the feeling of his sleeve in her grip, as drenched as a wet towel. He was out the door and into the bathroom down the hall in seconds. Jazz trailed after him in a trance with her damp hand out in front of her, unsure of what was happening. There was no way he hadn't felt the chill of cooling blood, or whatever wound had caused that much. Right? She watched as he gingerly took off his long sleeved shirt and Jazz couldn't help but wince when she saw how the fabric peeled off his skin away from the three inch gash on the back of his bicep. It looked long and deep, done by something sharp judging by the way it wouldn't stop bleeding. Danny grabbed a hand towel, wetted it and used it to wipe away the blood that just wouldn't stop coming out.

"You're going to need stitches." She blurted out.

"Shut up, would you? I've had mom's first aid course!"

"Don't tell me to shut up! How did you get that?" she spat, getting heated. She was beginning to really feel scared for him. "Does it have something to do with you pacing and not sleeping?"

He looked at her bewildered, "Pacing? What are you talking about? And are you going to help me or do I have to sew this myself?"

She didn't answer, just stared. The longer she looked into his face, his blue eyes burning, the deeper it sunk that he wasn't kidding. He had no intention of telling mom and dad or going to the hospital. Her brain instantly reminded her of the time she found him strapped to the goal post in elementary, but his eyes weren't the same. He was scared then, ashamed of what had happened like it was his fault. This time was different. He was going to do this with her help or not. Her brain supplied her with another hilariously morbid picture of Danny _trying_ to do it himself with a sewing needle instead of the curved one used for sutures. In this scenario, the bathroom was covered in blood and Danny passed out before the second stitch. She shook it from her head.

Jazz gently pushed him away from the sink, and washed her hands. "You wouldn't be able to reach it anyways. Grab the first aid kit."

He gave her a crooked grin, but grimaced when the skin became taut as he reached for it on the wall with the wrong arm. She watched, entranced, as the blood ran down into the crook of his armpit and down his side when he stubbornly grabbed the kit anyways and pulled it down. She had to forcibly tear her eyes away to close and lock the bathroom door. He put it on the counter, sat on the toilet and began disinfecting it when she passed him the wipes while she pulled out a pair of gloves, the needle, needle holders, thread, and forceps out. She knew that Danny trusted her; he wouldn't have let her in the bathroom if he didn't. Unless, he was afraid she would have run straight to mom and dad if he didn't make her an accomplice. Her hands were shaking and she couldn't thread the needle, and she couldn't meet Danny's eyes, and what if it was another bully, or a mugging, or a-

His hand rested on her arm above her glove, stilling it. She looked at him, and his face was blurry, but she could still see the expression on his face was apologetic.

"You don't have to, Jazz. Just, please don't tell mom and dad, ok? It was just the wrong place, wrong time and I don't want them to be mad at me."

"Come on, Danny, they won't be mad!"

"I don't want to tell them what happened, okay? And I don't want to lie either. It'll never happen again, I promise,"

Jazz looked at him for probably another minute. He looked sincere, and when had he perfected the kicked puppy dog look? She was also still skeptical of the whole situation, but at least he was being honest with her. More importantly, he was opening up to her. Now, two secrets had begun to separate them from their parents. If she was being honest, that was only since they moved here. There were stops in the past ten years that had parts that they kept to themselves, if only just to keep their parents from wanting to situate in some of the scary places in America or do something reckless. Staying in the Grand Canyon for weeks did not sound appealing to them at twelve and thirteen, and still didn't appeal to them now. She understood his words before he even said them.

"I want to stay here," he whispered.

Jazz took a deep breath and gently pushed him so he was sitting with his arm in the light. She focused on the needle and thread and got it through in one go. "It's gonna hurt, you know."

"We've done this once before."

"Yeah, with _mom_ looming over me and blocking out all the light."

She gripped the needle with the holders and thanked the Gods that she had watched so many extra videos on suturing. She decided that it would be best to do a simple running suture instead of having to tie it off each stitch. Another thing she hadn't forgotten when she watched the videos and read the books was how different it is to suture a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding versus stitching a cadaver or synthetic skins. She gripped the one side of the separated skin with the forceps before pushing the needle through before continuing through the other flap, pulling until there was about an inch left of the thread, before tying it off. If she wasn't so focused on how this was her _brother,_ she might be satisfied how the skin pulled together. Danny was stiff in the shoulders, but was keeping his arm loose. He didn't even twitch when the cool metal of the scissors touched his skin as she cut the tail end of the knot shorter. She went back to where she started about half a centimeter over and duplicated the bites, before pulling it taut and doing it close to twenty times over. When she got to the end of the wound, she became very aware of how sweaty her hands were inside the gloves and that his shoulders were shaking, slightly, but still. The final stitch wasn't pulled tight so she could use the loop to tie a square knot. It took longer than it probably should have, but her gloves were slippery with his blood, and she had to pull the thread that was in his skin around her thumb while she threaded it with the end before pulling it tight. She had to tie it three more times to make herself believe that it wouldn't come undone in his sleep before cutting the end off.

All in all, it seemed to be the most stressful half an hour of her entire life, and the male members of her family weren't exactly coordinated. Short story, not the first time Danny or her Dad had pretty serious injuries in the middle of nowhere, but usually super glue solved those problems. She removed her gloves before grabbing antiseptic wipes out of the first aid kit and using it to clean away the blood that had finally seemed to cease flowing. Once she could see it was clean and not looking too shabby for her first solo operation it seemed she could finally breathe. Jazz had to sit on the edge of the tub when her knees began to feel weak. Danny was looking at her with bleary eyes, but his face was awed.

"Don't sleep on it, wash it twice a day, and there's some Neosporin in the kit. You might want to wrap a bandage around it if it rubs against your shirt too much."

"You're amazing."

She lightly punched his good arm, "Shut up."

" _Don't tell me to shut up,"_ he mimicked as he stood up. He used his other arm to pull her up and practically fully support her all the way to the bedroom. They ended up sitting on her bed like they were not too long ago. It seemed like everything had changed since then, despite nothing _really_ changing. Jazz was suddenly exhausted; she felt how he looked.

"Thanks Jazz. I owe you one."

"You don't owe me anything, just… don't let it happen again, okay?"

He didn't respond, but she saw him nod. "Can... I ask you a question now?"

"I don't recall you answering mine."

"Yes, I know both those things. I had the foresight to look into safe sex and all that entails, please no more questions about it. My turn." A pause, and she could see in his face that he was nervous. What he had to be nervous about after what had just happened, she had no idea. "You wouldn't care if I liked guys, right?"

Jazz stared, bewildered. Never in her life had she ever seen that coming; not because she didn't think Danny as capable, but because she would have thought the answer would have been obvious. "No, Danny! I wouldn't care."

"And if I liked girls and guys?"

"Like, bisexual? No, Danny, I wouldn't care. You're my little brother."

"And... polyamory?"

"As long as it's honest and both people know, I don't see a problem."

"You're the best big sister ever, y'know. Especially when you're stabbing me with a needle or equally painful advice." He gave her a small sideways hug before leaving. She fell asleep listening to him shuffle around in the bathroom, probably cleaning up their mess before everything went quiet for her.

The last thought she had was that she would get him some superglue, so when it did happen again (like her gut said it would), it would be easier for him.

* * *

Their weekly trip to the Nasty Burger for their appointed meal after school started with Danny getting smacked upon the head from both sides, courtesy of his best friends.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"I told you not to get injured last night," Sam spat, more concern than anger really. He could tell from the ticking in her eyebrow.

"Also, how could you give Sam a laser lipstick and not me?"

" _That's_ what you're concerned about? Could you be anymore immature?"

Danny couldn't help but laugh. Every week their friendship solidified more into an unbreakable bond. If Danny dying before their eyes in a freak accident and coming back to life didn't send them running, he was sure nothing would.

"I can get you one, Tuck, I just didn't think green was your color."

"Well, I didn't think it was yours, but you rock it, so-"

He was shaking his head and blushing at the comment, but knew Tucker was just messing with him. "Enough with the flattery, aren't you going to ask me what happened last night?"

"Spill it," Sam ordered, taking a sip of her fruit smoothie.

Danny delved into how he'd had a feeling he might've been being watched, but couldn't be sure until the ghost confirmed it last night. Describing the ghost to them was difficult, because it wasn't quite human nor animal. "He was definitely part machine. His gauntlets and chestplate all had technology wired into them, and when I hit him he felt and fell like metal. He had a skull mask that's mouth moved on hinges, with this tacky green flaming mullet and goatee. Probably 6'8" and as solid as a brick wall. The weirdest thing is definitely the suit, though. Every ghost I've ever met, including myself, the clothing is a part of us. It's all ectoplasm, in the end."

Tucker piped in, "Like the theory of why you can't get your jacket back in human form."

"Or when we experimented by taking your boots off before you transformed back. They just disappeared and were back on your feet when you changed again."

"Exactly. My theory is that he's wearing a mechanical suit that's been built, completely separate from his original body. It's like the necklace you gave me." He explained, thumbing the gold tennis chain that had been Sam's father's. "It stays with me through the forms. It's an external source of power than from our core. I've got two theories:

One, either his actual form is too weak to do anything without it, or-

Two, it's just an extra layer of protection and he's just as powerful without it."

Tucker was stroking his chin where day-old stubble had begun. The rhythmic movement of his thumb seemed to calm Danny just as much as it did Tucker. "So, if it's the latter, we're in for some shit."

"Pretty much." Danny took a breath, preparing himself for a scolding. "His name is Skulker, which honestly should be Stalker, because his obsession is hunting and I guess I'm a hot commodity. He called me names I've never heard before and are difficult to translate. Gotta say, the guy liked to talk as much as he liked to fight. It was tough just to avoid his hits, and before I knew it we'd been at it for an hour and-" Danny trailed off, eyes unfocused as he remembered coming to a shocking revelation last night. Ghostly instincts that he'd never even known he'd had had kicked in. Fighting had never come naturally to him; he was lanky and could barely control his long limbs, let alone coordinate them into the sophisticated dance he'd done last night. Weaving underneath punches, dodging the ghost's frightening arsenal of weapons, not even feeling the slice of his dagger in his flesh before he was expertly smacking the blade out of his hand. He'd had an impressive collection of bruises and scrapes he didn't remember getting, not to mention not realising the deep gash in his arm until his sister was grabbing it. Then there was the other can of worms called his ecto-signature.

"Earth to Danny. You in there, bro?"

He blinked, suddenly aware of the tabletop edge gripped in his hands tight enough to crack. "Sorry. I got lost in the fight. It was like when you're in the middle of an exciting part of a video game; time just flies before you know it. I'd fought like I'd never fought before, it just came to me. I still lacked compared to him, but I held my own for a while until I realised why. I don't know how to explain it, but it was like my energy was feeding off of his. When I'd figured it out, my ghost aura was pulsing and fluctuating like I'd never seen in a ghost. It's like he'd caused me to become more powerful without even doing anything. Honestly," he took a deep breath, "It was a little scary. It didn't even feel like I was in control."

Sam and Tucker shared a look, and he could tell that it worried them as much as him. "Maybe we should stick around next time and-"

"No!" Danny said, the outburst stunning them into silence. "I can't be focused enough to fight him if I'm worried about you guys. He's got bazookas and shit; there was so much collateral damage I was sick to my stomach. You guys can't be there."

"Danny, if you're worried about forgetting yourself, we should be there."

"It's not quite that. Maybe focused, intensely so, but I still knew who I was. I was just… almost enjoying it."

Sam frowned while slurping her smoothie. How she could look so disappointed while sucking on a straw, he didn't know. He certainly couldn't pull it off. "There's no shame in enjoying a good fight. We don't shame martial artists or MMA fighters. How is what you're doing any different? Everyone becomes adrenaline-laser-focused in a fight like that."

Danny sighed, rubbing his neck. "I suppose."

"No suppose, yes. We're not going to ever judge you for that."

"Yeah, man, if anything it's kind of awesome. You're doing something no one has ever done before. Plus, you're still learning so we don't exactly blame you for looking for fights."

"That is _not_ what I've been doing."

They both laughed at him and with that Danny was finally beginning to relax since last night. He may not have a good solution for dealing with his stalker problem yet, but he felt better. As they packed up their garbage and grabbed their bags to leave, Danny made a split decision. He told them he'd meet them outside and went to the front counter. The oily teen stared at him and popped a gum bubble in his face. She had the same deadpan look as Sam and Danny was suddenly nervous. "Is Valerie here?"

The girl chewed open mouth for a couple seconds before, "No, she doesn't work Fridays."

And Danny was stumped by that. He thanked her dumbly and went outside, lost in a daze. He didn't have any thought other than when Valerie had told him she was working so they couldn't hang out, and that her Dad was gonna pick her up. Valerie had told him a bald-faced lie and he hadn't even noticed. There was a twist in his gut that hurt more than the twenty-odd stitches in his arm and a body of bruises.

Fridays were spent alternating between their houses, just to switch things up. Danny had managed by the skin of his teeth to let his parents change his curfew to midnight on Fridays. In his opinion, being nearly eighteen deserved a midnight curfew everyday. Not like it would really matter; he would be late getting home whether it was ten or not; he often snuck back out long once his parents disappeared into the basement again.

As it was, it was already ten to midnight and Danny knew he was at least still a twenty minute walk away. It was well worth it; they watched a freaky movie in Sam's basement theatre (which was an _actual_ theatre room) and instead of sitting in the leather seats with annoying armrests, they grabbed all the throw pillows and blankets they could find, resulting in a pillow nest in the middle of the aisle. Danny was beginning to enjoy the physical contact, as long as it was as comforting as Tucker leaning back against his one side, PDA in one hand as he multitasked their coming schedule; as comfortable as Sam's head on his other shoulder, hair tickling his neck, as she ate popcorn.

Definitely worth a half-hearted attempt at scolding from his parents.

At the moment, that was his only concern, until his breath chilled the same time as a rocket blast hit the space he was just standing before his instinct pulled him away. Danny landed on the pavement on his bad side, the cut on his arm pulling and tearing. He didn't want to know how many stitches he'd just pulled, but by the blood riveting down his arm, he'd say a fair amount.

"F̶̟̞̭͍͕̹̗̪̜̹̙͚̲̥̈́͂̀̒̂͆̄̏͊̚̕͝͠͝U̴̗͍̙̻̜͉̲̽̇͛͌̈́̾͌̇͑͆̾̋͐̄͘C̵̜̥̽̊̃͛ͅK̶̛̲̰̥̝͔̒̈́͗́͊̚̕ ̴̻̖̫͈̒̓̾̆̕͜Y̶̬̣̳̻̟̟̘͙͙̙͛͌̐̄̓̔̓͑͒̚͝Ơ̸̢̧̱̲̙̦̯̖͇͕͇̟̟̭̍͗̋̀̀̈̈͐̅̂͐͑̚Ừ̷̛̪̘̤̝̪̖̣̮͚̭̋̍̎̔̈͛̆͝!̷̧͉̝̣̙̖͚͎̱̠̠̏̏̉́̒͊́͋̏͗̓̌͝ͅ" He screamed at Skulker, who was floating above him again like a menacing omen with a jetpack. The pain and rage made him suddenly dizzy and his core flared in warning. Downside, it was dangerous for him to be leaking this much blood so early into the fight. Upside, he was in a deserted part of town at the dead end of night, he didn't fear changing on the sidewalk. That wasn't so much luck as it was his constant paranoia. As soon as the ectoplasm began running through his veins, the cut clotted instantly. Now that he was paying attention, it was quite obvious how well his ghost form dealt with injuries. Quickly, effortlessly, with little pain. No wonder he didn't ever notice getting wounded; he would have to pay better attention, it would be bad news if he changed back with a fatal wound, or with just a nick in the right spot.

"Oh, gettin' feisty, are we?" Skulker rumbled in response, his English choppy and digital. It had to be a vocoder, it was too smooth in his speech. Danny had a good feeling about that; if he was changing his voice, what else was he hiding? Other than the limitless arsenal, he lamented as Skulker's gauntlet rotated and something akin to his parent's rapid shot blaster popped up. His instinct told Danny that whatever was gonna come out would hit him whether he was intangible or not. So instead of waiting for a connecting hit, Danny decided to take the chance at hand-to-hand combat, VS turning into an extra dead piece of Swiss cheese.

Learning the hard way the night before, he knew he had to be unpredictable as well as quick. He'd managed to surprise Skulker the first time, but once his technology was locked onto him, he hadn't been able to do it again. So he did the next best thing he could think of. With the whine of his weapon powering up loud in his ears, Danny tried the same move again. Focusing on Skulker, he sensed where he needed to go and in a blink, his body obeyed. Skulker was expecting Danny to come to him, and he'd be right; what he wasn't expecting was Danny to phase through him and stop right behind him. Danny hadn't used any ectoblasts last night, preferring to keep his limited abilities a secret to start. He got a sick satisfaction every time he surprised people with his skills, whether it was people being shocked he knew how to sew or how to shoot green lasers from his fists. It was as good a time as any to show Skulker he wasn't just a hatchling. The blast was concentrated into his right hook and when it connected, it sent Skulker flying to the ground, much like last night. Looking through the dust of the rubble, Danny waited for movement. He didn't want to know what other weapons Skulker had on him. His ecto-signature flared and pulsed with excitement, even though his brain said he'd rather be elsewhere. Damn ghost body itching for a fight.

"Aren't you full of surprises, Halfa." Skulker's voice came from the dust. Danny could see his hulking shape begin to pull itself upright out of the crater. "Not many as fresh as you could do that, especially to the Greatest Hunter of the Ghost Zone."

Danny, surprised by the overloading information, couldn't help but lower a flaming fist and let the Scientist in his blood take over. His parent's would have a field-week if they ever gained that much information in one go. "What the hell is a Halfa? And you're the _Greatest Hunter?"_ Danny mimicked with an annoying voice he usually only used on his sister, "Is that why you've been stalking me?"

Before he'd barely finished speaking, a green net was launching out of the smoke and towards him. Even though he was ready for an attack, the slight distraction and his hamster-wheel brain had faltered enough for him to slack. Without enough time to dodge, Danny went intangible, even though his gut told him it was too late. The net hit its mark and took him right into the building behind him. The ectoplasm on the edge of the net kept him firmly glued to the cement wall. Snarling at being as unfettered as a bug in a glue trap, heat began to pool in his hands where he was pushing to keep the mesh from digging into his face.

Here, is where Danny learns a very important lesson. The elder Fenton's have a theory about ectoplasm, which he is aware of, that all non-sentient beings are made from excess ectoplasm excreted from the sentient ones. This is true. What Danny is going to learn is that all ectoplasm is laced with a ghost's ecto-signature. It is what keeps it loyal to the original body, what keeps ghosts from being able to phase through it initially. This is not the lesson, this is fact.

The lesson is that one-hundred percent dead ghosts have two sources of power; the ectoplasm, which gives them form, and their core, which feeds from energy created by emotions. Some people, when dying with turbulent thoughts and emotion, are gifted with another chance at life. It is not always negative emotions, but they are more common and more powerful. This, tying into whatever their focal point during their death, powers a ghost's obsession. Typically, the stronger the obsession, _the emotion_ , the stronger the ghost.

The heat in Danny's hands, fueled by his anger of being trapped, entwined with the fact this was his home-turf where he was getting stalked on the daily, and whatever havoc ghosts had been making in the meantime. Skulker's ecto-signature that was threaded into the very being of the ectoplasmic net began to hum and vibrate under his hands. This was not typical. For a second, the molecules froze, before bursting to life between his fingers. The net dissolved and melted, the stuff not close to his hands dripping away to the street below. The rest flood with his own energy, becoming part of him, and obeying his commands. Twin wicked green blades followed the length of his forearm, and he put himself into a defensive stance as soon as he could move. Danny, being a Halfa, would always have an endless supply of new emotion to burn off of; instead of the loop that full ghost's have. He was still panting from the effort of keeping blades in shape, but he could feel the power hum from the chain around his neck. Grinning at Skulker, who was staring at him in shock, there was a thrill at knowing he had energy to spare.

Skulker, shaking off his surprise, moved into action as fast as Danny had. He used his jetpacks to fly towards him- which begged the question _why-_ and swung out a fist. There was a gleam in those sockets of fire, and Danny got the impression that maybe he'd spooked him with that move. Ducking under his sloppy left hook, he used the movement of his punch to get behind him. Swiping up an arm, the blade neatly cut the jetpack off where it connected to the harness.

"You little whelp!" he screeched, as the jetpack spiraled and exploded to the ground, where gravity also took Skulker. Danny watched in fascination as he tried to fight it, but ultimately couldn't hold himself up. When he landed, his metal boots put two great new potholes in the street. Quick to retaliate, he activated a whipcord in his gauntlet which wrapped itself around Danny's ankle. He was connecting with the pavement before he could come up with anything to do about it. It was a lucky thing ectoplasm made his body feel more jelly-like, otherwise he'd have some serious broken bones. "You're a fucking whelp," Danny moaned, peeling himself off the road. There was a trickle of something wet in his hair, something more viscous than sweat. This fight needed to end before it got any worse, or he needed to get the hell outta there. Reaching a hand into his pocket hurt far more than it should have, with his good arm even. He had to roll himself onto his back to get the leverage to withdraw the thermos, which hummed with cold energy in his hand. The chain around his neck hadn't been bursting with power since he'd dissolved the blades upon landing; he almost should thank Skulker, he hadn't realised how close to draining his back-up battery he'd been. Using half the power to charge up the containment device, he used the other half to make it invisible. What power was left went into forming a long dagger of ectoplasm in his right. There was a chance the dagger wouldn't last long, but he needed to prove one more hypothesis before he even tried the thermos. The element of surprise was his friend, and in this case, his last chance.

"Since you asked so nicely, whelp, and because you are the first prey in a long time to give me a challenge, I will answer your question. A Halfa is what you are, and why I want your pelt. Hybrids like you are rare, boy, and they never last long. You'll be the first, in a cage!"

Danny, either concussed again or just stupid enough to not know when to stop egging on people with the upper hand, couldn't help himself. Some how he knew if he made Skulker and his obsession sound stupid, it would rile him up. Not like it was hard. "So… are you going to skin me or put me in a cage? Honestly, doesn't sound like my kind of party. Unless, you got alcohol? There's gotta be booze in the Zone; how else do you all pass the time? Stalking people can't be _all_ you do?" Danny pulled himself up, keeping his boots on solid ground. The illusion of gravity helped the slight sway of the world. He readied the dagger in his hand and kept the other at his side. The flare in Skulker's temper was like a burst of hot air and he had to force himself to hold ground.

"Maybe I'll skin _and_ cage you, you brat!"

Even in a great hulking metal suit, Danny had to give props the guy could _move._ Without enough time for his brain to recognize and respond, his body moved on its own to dodge the swift punch to the head that would have broken his neck. His spiked knuckle guards scratched his cheek, leaving a thin cut that welled with ectoplasm. Focusing more power into the dagger, he swiped upwards, aiming for the weak spot of his armor in his elbow. With a creak and a hiss of hydraulics, his arm was off. Danny jumped back and dissolved the blade, examining his handy-work. Just like he'd thought; there was no wail of pain from the hunter, just a stream of curses. There was no ectoplasm; just leaking fluid that almost resembled motor oil. Skulker's armor wasn't just armor, it was a fabricated body.

"Do you know how long it took me to craft that!" the ghost was screeching. Using his distraction, Danny lunged into his personal space. There was ectoplasm in there, he thought, staring into the eye sockets. Hand flaming green, he grabbed Skulker's face mask and dug in his nails which sunk into the hot metal with ease. With one fluid motion, he ripped it off and flung it behind him. What stared back was something out of a fever dream.

Or perhaps something out of the Wizard of Oz. There was a tiny, little man (blob? With four distinct appendages and a head?) sitting in an equally tiny chair where the brain should be. All around him were mechanisms and levers, spinning gears and pulleys. It was quite the tiny work of art, not to mention the skill Skulker had to operate with such fluidity. Danny had expected something, but not this.

"Why, you little twerp!" The now nasally and drastically higher pitch voice raved. The blobulous humanoid was shaking a finger at him and was almost completely out of it's harnessed chair before Danny finally reacted. He held up his left hand and levelled it at him.

"While you're in there, think how it must feel for the other things you've caged. I hope you learn your lesson. Don't be mad if I forget about you for a while, it's only fair."

With a blast of bright light and a fading "Noooo!", the fight was over. Danny stood in the middle of a deserted, destroyed street with nothing but a soup thermos and an aching body. Pocketing the thermos, he sighed and gingerly touched the wound on his head. Probing it with his fingers he found it was a relatively small, shallow cut that just oozed a lot. After that, he checked the next worse thing. Twisting his elbow, he peered around to the back of his forearm. Using a little bit of power, he singled out his jacket and made it invisible so he could get a look. The ectoplasm had solidified around the cut, preventing any more stitches from pulling. Maybe half of them had ripped; it was a good thing Jazz had 'discreetly' placed a tube of superglue in his shoe. He'd almost squashed it pulling them on in a haste this morning, but at least he remembered to put it in his backpack. Doing another quick check that their scuffle hadn't caused any unwanted attention, Danny skulked back to the darkness of an alley before transforming. After that, he pulled out his phone and reluctantly looked at the time, already knowing the answer.

_12:54_

Almost an hour late, and he was _still_ a twenty minute walk away. Before he ran into Skulker, he might've been tempted to fly home to quell his parent's wrath, but now that wasn't an option. The fatigue was already setting in and he wasn't desperate enough to risk another power drain. Resigned to his doomed fate, Danny sauntered his way back home, enjoying the sight of the night sky before he got majorly grounded.

What a wonderful start to October.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all comments are cherished and give me a great boost of confidence, thank you <3


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